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  • Drilling down into the cave – 100 tunnels drilled so far

    Drilling down into the cave – 100 tunnels drilled so far

    As the frantic effort continues around the Tham Luang caves to find alternative ways to get to the cave chamber where the 13 footballers have been waiting since two weeks ago, ‘chimneys’ or tunnels from the top or side of the mountain, down into the cave, are being established. AFP are reporting that there have been more than 100 of…

  • Heavy rain forecast forcing rescuers to act, or wait

    Heavy rain forecast forcing rescuers to act, or wait

    Outgoing Chiang Rai governor, Narongsak, at a media briefing held at midnight last night, has admitted that oxygen supply within the section of the cave where the 13 footballers are waiting, has become a major concern. He also mentioned the threat from potential heavy rains in the next few days that is forcing the rescue teams to consider a premature…

  • Messages from inside the Tham Luang Caves

    Messages from inside the Tham Luang Caves

    Whilst they’re waiting for the rescue to start, the 13 trapped footballers have been taking time to write some messages to their families and the outside world, with a special note for their teachers. One message read… “Don’t worry. We are all healthy. We want to eat many kinds of food from outside. When we are out from the cave,…

  • Chalong boats must stay at port

    Chalong boats must stay at port

    The Phuket Marine Office has announced that, today (July 7), all boats are not permitted to leave from the Chalong Pier, except boats that are involved with the search teams which are under instruction from the search operation centre. The search for missing people started again this morning at 5am after being stopped late last evening. The focus of today’s…

  • Search continues today for survivors. 23 remain missing.

    Search continues today for survivors. 23 remain missing.

    With the body count numbers still in flux, as the recovery mission continues, the Phuket PR Office says the official death toll is 33 tourists that have died with dozens still missing. Strong winds and high waves sunk the dive yacht Phoenix, packed with mainly Chinese visitors, late on Thursday afternoon when a weather front came in from the Andaman…

  • Calamity off the coast of Phuket and the latest from Chiang Rai caves.

    Calamity off the coast of Phuket and the latest from Chiang Rai caves.

  • Thaiger TV: Update on the two big stories from Thailand today

    Thaiger TV: Update on the two big stories from Thailand today

    https://www.facebook.com/thethaigernews/videos/1774414402636380/

  • Boat victims will receive 300,000 baht from Thai Government

    Boat victims will receive 300,000 baht from Thai Government

    As the search continues off the south-west coast of Phuket for survivors from tour boats that sank yesterday afternoon, Thai officials are already rolling out the PR machine. The Tourism and Sports Minister Weerasak Kowsurat has already promised that families of the victims of the boat accidents in Phuket will receive 300,000 baht (9,000 USD) each from the Thai government.…

  • Deputy PM foreshadows legal action against captain and owner of ‘Phoenix’

    Deputy PM foreshadows legal action against captain and owner of ‘Phoenix’

    PHOTO: ‘Phoenix’ from Siraphop Srakaew Deputy PM Prawit Wongsuwan is threatening legal action against the captain and the owner of the ‘Phoenix’, the ill-fated tourist boat that sank yesterday evening off the south-west coast of Phuket. General Prawit says the captain and owner of the Phoenix boat will be held responsible for the accident. ‘Phoenix’ sank with 105 people on…

  • Phuket: UPDATE. What we know 2.15pm

    Phuket: UPDATE. What we know 2.15pm

    Friday, 2.15pm • 21 dead bodies have now been recovered from near Koh Maiton and just off the coast of Koh Keaw (east Phuket) • Up to 35 remain missing (figure is continually being revised) • A Chinese female tourist has been pulled out of the Andaman Sea, alive. She has been taken to Vachira Hospital in Phuket Town in…

  • Phuket: Seventeen more bodies recovered. 39 remain missing

    Phuket: Seventeen more bodies recovered. 39 remain missing

    Navy sailors have located 17 more bodies from the sea off Phuket, raising the number of confirmed deaths in boat accidents to 18, while 39 Chinese tourists remain missing. Officials aboard HTMS Long Lom recovered 12 bodies at 10.50am near the location where the tour boat Phoenix sank after being slammed by huge waves on its way back to Phuket…

  • Warm farewell for British cave-diver

    Warm farewell for British cave-diver

    By Suthinan Kongsin The Tourism and Sports Minister Weerasak Kowsurat presented a certificate of honour to Briton Robert Charles Harper at Suvarnabhumi International Airport last night (Wednesday) as the cave expert, who played a crucial role in finding the 13 footballers, departed for home. In a spontaneous 11pm ceremony, Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith also gave him a painting of Harper…

  • Mae Hong Son: Plane crash. Injured trooper rushed to hospital, bodies retrieved.

    Mae Hong Son: Plane crash. Injured trooper rushed to hospital, bodies retrieved.

    Rescuers have rushed an injured Army trooper to hospital and retrieved three bodies after an Army Cessna 182 light aeroplane crashed in Mae Hong Son province near the Myanmar border on Thursday. A rescue team from the 17th Infantry Regiment, local defence volunteers from Ban Huay Pheung village, the Mae Hong Song Disaster Mitigation Office as well as a medical…

  • Chiang Rai: Former Thai Navy SEAL dies during rescue

    Chiang Rai: Former Thai Navy SEAL dies during rescue

    A former Thai navy SEAL has died while on the way way back to the ‘hall 3’ area from where the 13 footballers are stranded. He was participating in the rescue of the 13 footballers in the Tham Luang Caves in Chiang Rai. He had finished his paid work with the Thai Navy SEAL team but was working with the rescue…

  • 56 still missing as search continues off Phuket

    56 still missing as search continues off Phuket

    Latest update as of 9am Thailand Time, from the Phuket PR Office, states that one Chinese tourist has been found dead and 56 are still missing in two major marine incidents yesterday afternoon (July 5). Chinese tourists are still missing following the capsize off Phuket. Divers are currently scouring the sunken vessel, the Phoenix, for missing people. The tour boat…

  • 4-5 metres waves hit my boat, says Captain

    4-5 metres waves hit my boat, says Captain

    The Captain of the dive boat ‘Phoenix’ claims that four to five metres waves hit the boat causing it to sink. Smoking Boontham, captain of the dive boat ‘Phoenix’, was carrying 105 passenger – 93 tourists, 12 boat crew and tour guides – says, “Yesterday (July 5) we left Chalong Pier at 9am heading to Koh Racha. After that we…

  • 14 flights delayed, 6 diverted, black-outs at airport as storms hit Phuket

    14 flights delayed, 6 diverted, black-outs at airport as storms hit Phuket

    File photo/Air Asia plane arrives at Phuket International Airport. Many flights were unable to land safely at Phuket International Airport on time and had to be diverted. There were power outages around the airport lasting from six minutes to many hours yesterday (July 5). Fourteen flights were delayed as planes were not able to land due to the wind squalls…

  • “Unrealistic and very risky.” Academic warns about cave rescue.

    “Unrealistic and very risky.” Academic warns about cave rescue.

    By Pratch Rujianrom Associate Professor Ariya Aruninta from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok is warning that the focus on evacuating the trapped 13 by drying the cave was unrealistic and very risky. Draining water out of the Tham Luang cave is an impossible mission, she claims, even as the rescue operation makes headway and pumping water from the flooded cave has…

  • Many still missing, one dead. Search resumes this morning off Phuket.

    Many still missing, one dead. Search resumes this morning off Phuket.

    Chinese tourists are still missing following a capsize off Phuket late yesterday afternoon (Thursday). Divers are currently scouring the sunken vessel, the Phoenix, for missing people. The tour boat was one of two reported to have capsized yesterday late afternoon. Phuket’s Governor Plodthong is keeping the media up to date with regular briefings. A sudden wind equal hit the Andaman…

  • Interview with Ben Reymenants – Phuket diver diving at the Tham Luang caves

    Interview with Ben Reymenants – Phuket diver diving at the Tham Luang caves

    Transcript of an interview on The Thaiger 102.75 between ‘Waking the Thaiger’ host Garry Holden and Rawai cave-diving specialist Ben Reymenants. Ben has been volunteering his experience, skills and time up at the Tham Luang caves as part of the enormous rescue effort. Here is some of Garry’s conversation with Ben – a fascinating insight into what’s been happening in…

  • Open letter from His Majesty The King

    Open letter from His Majesty The King

    Letter from His Majesty Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun I am pleased and greatly relieved to learn that, on 2nd July, 2018, the rescuers have reach all 12 youth footballers of Moo Pa (Wild Boar) Academy Football Club and their coach who were trapped inside Tham Luang caves in Tham Luang – Khun Nam Nang Non Forest Park on 23rd June, 2018. This…

  • So close, yet so far – challengers ahead for divers and survivors

    So close, yet so far – challengers ahead for divers and survivors

    Whilst rescuers are tackling the tricky task of removing the 13 trapped footballers from the Tham Luang caves, the Governor of Chiang Rai has shared some of the latest thinking and strategies from the divers and rescue team. Doctors say that the 13 survivors are not physically ready to be taken out after their extended stay in total darkness for…

  • Koh Chang: Chinese swimmers rescued off Sai Khao beach

    Koh Chang: Chinese swimmers rescued off Sai Khao beach

    Thai PBS is reporting that three Chinese tourists have been rescued off Koh Chang, near the Cambodian border off the coast, south of Pattaya. Rescue workers saw the three of them caught by a rip current while swimming in the sea off Sai Khao beach on early this afternoon (Wednesday) in defiance of red flags along the beach. One of the…

  • Murder suspect arrested 24 hours before statute of limitations expired

    Murder suspect arrested 24 hours before statute of limitations expired

    A Trang murder suspect has been arrested in Satun yesterday, just 24 hours before the statute of limitations on the 20 year old murder case was due to expire. 41 year old Kredis Sombatthong, a resident of Trang’s Yan Ta Khao district, was arrested by Crime Suppression Division police in Satun’s Khun Ka Long district this morning (Thursday) under a…

  • Chiang Rai: A crash course in swimming and diving

    Chiang Rai: A crash course in swimming and diving

    PHOTO: Thai Navy SEALS “Rescue teams have been giving crash courses in swimming and diving as part of complex preparations to evacuate the footballers trapped in Tham Luang cave.” Chiang Rai’s Governor Narongsak Osotthanakorn says he still can’t be specific as to when and how the survivors would be taken out of the cave where they have been stranded since…

  • Chiang Rai: “How to get them out” – Jonathan Miller reports

    Chiang Rai: “How to get them out” – Jonathan Miller reports

    Jonathan Miller from Channel 4 in the UK provided an on-the-scene look at  what’s been happening just outside the Tham Luang caves as the rescuers get ready for the evacuation process.

  • Malaysian polygamist, who married 11 year old Thai girl, must face trial

    Malaysian polygamist, who married 11 year old Thai girl, must face trial

    A former UN committee member on the Rights of the Child, Sanphasit Koompraphant, is urging the police of both Malaysia and Thailand to take legal action against the 41 year old Malaysian man immediately who has ‘married’ an 11 year old Thai girl in Narathiwat province. He says the marriage has clearly violated the laws. He was responding to a report…

  • Phuket Brand trade fair to be held at Jungceylon

    Phuket Brand trade fair to be held at Jungceylon

    A Phuket Brand fair will be held on July 6 -10 at Jungceylon Phuket with more than 50 stalls.           Phuket Vice Governor Prakob Wongmaneerung and Chief of Phuket Trading Office, Decha Petchwong, announced the details at a media conference yesterday. Khun Decha says, “We are paying attention to both unique as well as standard brands to build confidence in tourists…

  • Woman’s ex steals car in Pattaya

    Woman’s ex steals car in Pattaya

    Sophon Cable reports that the Pattaya police station chief has announced the arrest of a man who stole his ex girlfriend’s car from outside her apartment. Pol Col Apichai Krobpetch says the white Yaris went missing in April and 26 year old Jinda Cheuyphonklang  suspected her ex who she had just split up with. It was taken from an apartment…

  • Chiang Mai: Wife follows husband to short time hotel. It didn’t end well.

    Chiang Mai: Wife follows husband to short time hotel. It didn’t end well.

    PHOTO: Sanook Sank is reporting that a Chiang Mai woman has caught her husband in bed with his mistress in a San Sai ‘short time’ hotel. The 27 year old woman, Chaweewan, created a racket outside the hotel room. Her 19 year old rival, Thitiya, eventually opened the door. Chaweewan was brandishing an automatic .380 and an argument and struggle…