Thai cave boys’ coach trapped again, this time by typhoon flooding
Global News
Ekkapol Chantawong said Typhoon Yagi trapped him, his family, his girlfriend and her aunt on the rooftop of their home in Thailand, with no time to escape the raging floodwaters.
The soccer coach of 12 boys who were famously trapped in a cave in northern Thailand in 2018 became stuck again this week, this time forced to spend a night perched on a rooftop during flash floods in the country.
Ekkapol Chantawong told Agence France-Presse that Typhoon Yagi forced him, his family, his girlfriend and her aunt onto the roof of their home in the northern Thai district of Mae Sai on Tuesday. He said they had no time to escape the flash flooding.
The typhoon, which marooned thousands of people in the country’s north, has triggered deadly flooding and landslides in northern Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar.
Chantawong shared several videos of the rising water to his Instagram account. In one clip from Wednesday, Chantawong is sitting atop a red roof as he records the rushing, murky water filling the street below.
He called the situation “very serious” and said the home’s front wall had been destroyed by the flooding.
Over six years ago, Chantawong and 12 boys from a soccer team he coached, called the Wild Boars, became trapped inside Thailand’s Tham Luang cave complex. Rising floodwater kept them in the cave for nearly three weeks until an international rescue operation freed the coach and the boys. The mission required a team of skilled divers, who used anesthesia on the boys before transporting them out of the cave system on specialized stretchers.
Chantawong told AFP his experience trapped inside the cave helped him to calmly navigate the flooding in northern Thailand this week.
