The football coach, who accompanies the twelve children who remain trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand, has apologized to his parents in a letter sent to them by divers.
"Thank you for all the moral support, I apologize to all the parents," 25-year-old coach Ekapol Chandawong wrote in a letter released today by rescuers.
Following the release of two videos, the first from the discovery of the group on Monday night by British divers and the second shot on Tuesday, no other videos have been released. Also, the telephone connection that the authorities tried to install, unrolling kilometers of cable inside the cave, never worked. But today rescuers released letters written by children to their families, which are the first public evidence since Tuesday that they are alive.
"Don't worry, Mom and Dad, it's been two weeks since I left, but I'll be back to help you shop," writes Beau, whose parents own a small grocery store. A former Thai Navy diver died on Friday during a child refueling operation. The rescuer's death raises many questions about whether it is possible to remove the group from the flooded network of caves where the children have been locked up for 14 days.
Last night, the head of the crisis management core, Narongsak Osotanakorn, who is also the governor of Chiang Rai province, said that at the moment it is not possible to rescue the children and their coach by diving into the water. Many of the children, aged 11 to 16, do not know how to swim and none of them have ever dived, which further complicates business.
At present, an experienced diver needs eleven hours to reach the children and return: Six hours to go and five hours to return thanks to the currents.