On June 23, 2018, after the training of the Thai "Wild Boars" youth football team, the coach led 12 players to explore the Tham Luang cave, also known as the Sleeping Beauty cave, in Chiang Rai Province in northern Thailand. Subsequently, the entire group went missing.
The cave is over 10 kilometers in length and is the fourth - longest cave in Thailand. Due to the complex terrain inside the cave, no one has ever traversed the entire cave so far.
After the incident, the local police used drones and underwater robots for search and rescue operations. The search and rescue personnel found the missing people's shoes and bicycles at the cave entrance, and also discovered their backpacks and footprints in the cave passage. The rescuers analyzed that after the missing people entered the cave, sudden heavy rainfall triggered floods, trapping them inside the cave.
Due to the continuous rise of water level in the cave and its complex internal structure, the rescue work progressed slowly. Upon learning the news, the Thai Blue Sky Rescue Team responded immediately. They dispatched team members to gather information and got in touch with the International Department and Coordination Center of the Blue Sky Rescue in China. Zhang Yong, the general commander, organized a number of cave rescue experts, underwater robot operation experts, and deep - diving rescue experts to provide online support and guide the Thai Blue Sky Rescue Team in the search and rescue operation.
At around 10:30 p.m. on July 2, 2018, divers first discovered the 13 trapped people. However, the subsequent rescue work was extremely difficult. It was not until 7 p.m. on July 10 that the transfer of all the trapped people was completed.
