BREAKING: Thai authorities say Navy SEAL working to rescue the Thai soccer team been trapped in cave has died from lack of oxygen.
According to Commander Arpakorn Yookongkaew -
Samarn Kunan, 37, the former Navy Seal, died due to a lack of oxygen in the tunnel. Kunan was placing oxygen tanks through the cave's underground network while preparing for a potential rescue mission of the soccer team and coach.
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Ten days after 12 members and a coach of a youth soccer team in Thailand went missing, rescuers found all 13 people alive deep inside of a cave complex in a mountainous region of the country.
“We found them safe," Chiang Rai Governor Narongsak Osatanakorn said before adding that "the operation isn’t over."
Rescuers have been desperately searching the Tham Luang Nang Non caves located in the Chiang Rai province of Thailand. The rescue operations were slowed due to heavy rain which flooded the caves and forced rescue workers to find alternative routes to search the pitch-black caverns.
The U.S. Pacific Command sent a 30-person rescue team to aid in the search for the missing kids, who were between the ages of 11 and 16. They worked with members of Thailand's military using helicopters, underwater vehicles, and drones in the search for the missing people.
A rescue operation is underway, but officials have not said how long that will take.