farr, a cave diving expert and a friend of two members of the british rescue team currently on—site at the cave diving location. we are nowjoined by chris boardman from the british caving associationis story as you have watched it unfold? this isjust absolutely fantastic news. i know that the timing is effectively perfect. they have been draining the cave for as long as they know the children have been there and they are acutely aware that the monsoon rains are due sometime today. they had to move and they have moved decisively, and i have so much respect for the rescue personnel, for the divers who have come from so personnel, for the divers who have come from so many personnel, for the divers who have come from so many nations, and the thai navy seals and for the children themselves who have stepped up to themselves who have stepped up to the mark. we know that they will not have had to dive the whole distance, not by any means, because of the drainage they were able to do. they will have been able to work and crawl some of the distance which will have made life easier even though it is very physical. my admiration is for the children and their rescuers. how safe is cave diving

you work within the british caving association. how do you make caving safe for children?anned to send their children away on a summer holiday, enjoying caving systems, now saying, can we hold back? not a word. this summer, i am taking children caving in france. as yet, nobody has asked me about it. i am sure we will speak about it in the coming weeks. this has to do with picking a venue appropriate for the age and experience of the children. that is no criticism of their football coach. he did not think he was going caving, he thought he was going to a show cave, to a holiday—maker destination, something that thousands of thai people would do with their family and friends on a regular basis. it turns out that this cave had a bit ofa bite and i am sure that in the future, some thought will be given to regulation and planning. the mission to rescue these boys started this morning. at least four boys are said to be in good health according to the latest press co nfe re nce . good health according to the latest press conference. the rest remain trapped in the original locatio

andy evers, former head of the british caving association and i am sure we will talk to you again.successful in the coming hours and days. you are watching bbc news. it is nearly quarter past ten. england fans are continuing to celebrate the fact that their team are just one win away from the world cup final, after their comfortable victory yesterday against sweden. their opponents in the semifinal will be croatia who beat the hosts russia in a penalty shoot—out. our correspondent sarah rainsford is in samara where yesterday's match took place. some extremely dedicated england fans that we have been meeting over the past couple of days in samara but they are pretty pleased that they made the investment because for a lot of people, they did not think england would get this far. as soon as they were sitting on the sofa or in the pub back home watching england progress and watching the team perform, a lot of them started scrabbling to get tickets, as you say, to spend a small fortune to get here and to experience the moment. but the moment i think has been well worth it, they would sa

let's speak to andy evers, the former head of the british caving association. what more have you been hearing about this rescue operation? to be honest, i gave a number of interviews this morning and i have been doing family things for a couple of hours. i have been married very happily for 50 years and i am trying to kid like that! i have had a number of phone calls from various people and i know as much as anybody else as to what is going on and i am absolutely delighted. i have to say am not surprised. i would have predicted that exactly this might have happened. but i like to be optimistic but not too optimistic. i think we will see more of these boys coming out like this in the next few days. you said you are not surprised. are you surprised by the speed at which they have been brought out? we were expecting the process to take longer. no, not really. actually coming through the flooded sections will not take all that long, it will not take lots of hours. getting in there and getting setup and getting ready will take the time. the actual passage from where

andy eve this, the former head of the british caving association. he former head of the british caving association. (tx sot) to remind you, four of the boys who have been trapped in the caving system in northern thailand have been brought out and they have been transferred to a local hospital for treatment. the rescue operation has been put on hold for ten hours to allow the rescue team to rest and prepare before they resume the operation tomorrow morning at 8am local time. stay with us, you are watching bbc news. now it is time for a look at the weather. if you think the weather is either too hot or too dry, we will briefly address one of those in the week ahead, it will briefly be cooler, but it will be warming up again. plenty of warm, hot sunshine in england and wales today, but in scotla nd in england and wales today, but in scotland and northern ireland we have seen more cloud coming in. thicker cloud in northern scotland and it has been cooler and it could have been a bit of light rain or drizzle. it is mainly dry this evening and overnight an

go to birmingham in the uk where chris boardmanjoins us, is safeguarding officer of the british caving associationaying was mission impossible. this is an absolute extraordinary rescue. my admiration goes out to the thai navy seals and the cave divers from the us and uk who went out to thailand just as they did mexico in 200a to look for the children. really fantastic. we really saw that it was an international effort. people bringing in their skills from right across the globe, coming together to try to rescue these boys. very much so. the navy seals were expert divers and obviously they can speak thai which none of the international rescu e rs thai which none of the international rescuers could do, but the international team was in cage diving which is different to diving itself. we should remember as well that these boys didn't necessarily know how to swim, they had never really dived before, so that added to the complexity of this whole mission. absolutely. also the really difficult time constraints with the expected monsoon this past weekend, i have the greatest admiration for the thai author

andy, former head of the british caving association, thank you very much. thank you. are watching bbc news. let's take you back to thailand and the reuters correspondent panu wongcha—um spoke to us earlier and described the scene as reports started emerging that two of the boys might have been rescued. it is an undertaking even for an experienced diver. with the rain coming down, which means over the next few days the water level inside the cave could potentially rise. next few days the water level inside the cave could potentially risem will be interesting to see how the weather in packs the rescue operation and to stress the bbc does not have independent confirmation reconfirming the two boys have been rescued safely. this story has gripped the world. i can only imagine what a charged, emotionally charged situation it is on the ground. certainly, for us covering the story, there has been very little bits of information coming out from the operation, understandably, because of the complexity, because of the line of communication, which is difficult through the caves,

earlier i spoke to andy eavis, the former head of the british caving association. d me the most important thing for the rescue was that the boys do not panic. i should point out straightaway that diving in caves is considerably different from diving in open water and it was very important to get cave divers out there, people who have the right mindset to be able to operate in these types of conditions, no visibility, tight spaces and no airspace above. they have got a team now of international cave, and i repeat, cave divers, and that is the key to this. they are the masters of the profession. they are experienced in this sort of operation before and they have the best chance of anybody on earth of getting these guys out. your reporter there had a lot of the problems very clearly defined. we were just seeing pictures of those two british divers who found the boys in the first place. this is incredibly difficult and dangerous work and obviously all of the families, the eyes of the world on this rescue operation now. it is going to take time, isn't it, to get them out

let's speak to andy eavis, the former head of the british caving association.you have been following the story and speaking to us on bbc news. this latest development, four boys out, what is your response? euphoria. it is wonderful that they have got four out safely. it suggests, with a great deal of luck and not too much rain that they can get the other nine out. fingers crossed. the great moment last week was actually getting through and finding the boys, and finding all 13 of them alive. that was a wonderful moment. the second wonderful moment was getting the first of them out in ta ct getting the first of them out in tact and looking pretty good. in between, unfortunately, there was this dreadful disaster of the thai diver diving. itjust underlines the danger varies with this type of operation. —— diver dying. cave divers realise this situation and they will be very careful and composed, and you were asking earlier what they will be doing in this period, they will be resting andi this period, they will be resting and i hope they can get as much rest as they

let's speak to andy eavis, former chair of the british caving association, who knows john volanthen andsentjohn and rick to thailand. thank you, gentlemen, for talking to us. thank you, gentlemen, for talking to us. i know your colleague has been texting and e—mailing john blanton and richard stanton, what did they have to say about the rescue? well, we had some information from them after they completed the dive yesterday, describing a bit of what they had had to do. they describe they had had to do. they describe the dive as being, the word they used was gnarly, which means they had had to swim upstream, hauling themselves upstream against the current for quite a way. the total diving section is about 1500 metres, and about half of that is actually submerged, and the other half is bits that are above water. so they we re bits that are above water. so they were diving and then wading a section, then diving another section before they got through to where the boys were. fortunately, the diving conditions improved over the weekend, to make serious diving possible again. the water recedin

the safeguarding officer for the chris boardman there, the safeguarding officerfor the british caving associationthe pictures you can see that were taken over the last few days, as preparations were put in place. some of that also was the equipment used to pump some of the equipment used to pump some of the water that has been causing so many problems for this operation. the boys there, clearly those boys are young. the youngest i believe is 11 years old. if you think about it, we have heard how tight some of the chambers are and how narrow everything is. the size of them presumably would help with the manoeuvrability aspect of this rescue. we have another guest now to share their experience. we arejoined by their experience. we are joined by steve whitlock, who was part of the 200a expedition which resulted in six men being trapped in one of the biggest cave networks in mexico city, although he was not one of those trapped. he coordinated the rescue with a british diver, rick stanton, who was one of the first to actually find the children in that flooded cave in northern thailand. thank you forj

i believe this is a former chairman of the british caving association he joins us via skype from thanks very much for being with us so it does seem that at this stage it's a kind of a good news story after nine days of them being trapped in there but tell us a bit more about that particular cave complex and what the challenges will be for for them to stay alive in there and be able to get out of edgeley. this city. goalie. rescue is a goalie in there you know a lot of you say you. know rescue is it going in the big. one of these lawyers only. i haven't heard too much about the detail of of what's going on today but they will they will over the last nine days of been desperately desperately short of logs than that the important thing is a lot when you're in the dark and knowing daisies it's terribly debilitating they just won't really have known where they are what's happening they were being terribly disorganized now they've got a log on the rescues have taken a lot in they will be following they will be partying they will be absolutely following but it's the sooner they get my better b

we can talk about andy evers, the former head of the british caving association. ive us an idea if you can about how hard it would be for divers to get into a network of caves like this and to find boys like these who have been trapped in there, to find them alive. i think they had a very good chance of being alive, it was what condition they are in. i haven't heard back yet. i don't think anybody in this country has heard that yet. there was every chance they were going to find somewhere above water and not drown. the error will be fine, they won't have rock falls. they have plenty of water to drink, it might but —— might not be the cleanest that it can kill them. they will be very hungry. the biggest problem that they will have is the darkness. i don't know what light they started with. they obviously had some torches and hopefully they had some mobile phones. although the mobile phones will be used to communicate, they will be used to communicate, they will be used to communicate, they will be useful as means of elimination. if they have got some sort of organis

chamber and on the dangerous will not speak to mt everest he's a former chairman of the british caving association he's joining us from hole in the u.k. thanks for speaking to us on al-jazeera so we are getting the good news that at least four of the boys have now been rescued but it's still worth noting that it is a very dangerous and complex operation for the boys as well as the divers yes absolutely. the what the boys have to do is keep cool calm and collected the. emphasize that that's the main thing they need to do and clearly from the outset they they've shown composure and lack of panic and that's what they need to do to breathe underwater when they've never breathe underwater before that's the critical thing here is that the the divers the cave divers who are actually undertaking this operation have to convince the boy he said that they they are comfortable they will survive breathing through their breathing operators on the water but once not been overcome they they then have to get them out but they are saying they're they they will be accompanied all the way i say the toilet sections wi

we are nowjoined by the british caving association's chris boa rdman.und alive after nine days. tell us how you expect them to go about trying to bring them to go about trying to bring them to go about trying to bring them to safety now. the key thing is actually not to be in a rush. with these monsoon rains, the water is going to be completely opaque. a cave diver wes four lights, powerful lights on the helmet. all that is going to come back into their face is brown water that they can't see their hand in front of their face in. the youngsters and their coach will have no diving experience, so if they are having to come to passages that are flooded, they will need to be briefly coached on how to use the equipment safely. they will need to stay in physical contact with the rescuer and come out one at a time. it is actually quite important, there will know this already, not to be in a rush to first return with food and clothing and supplies. and calm everybody down, possibly even exchanged notes from families, because this is something they need to take

operation, now on his way back to the uk and we expect to hear more details from the british cave diving associations from around the world have joined this operation, howard, our heroes. i mean, saving these 12 kids and their coach deep inside the cave. yes, the message today we heard from lots of these volunteers was the pride of taking part in this operation. we spoke to lots of divers today. there was a spanish diver who was just leaving the airport, and we grabbed a quick question with him. asked him how the boys were, and he said that when he saw them that they were sedated, which is what lucy was explaining in her package, that the boys were unconscious and they were breathing. so it adds to this detail, that the boys were given some sort of sedative to get them through this ordeal. they tried to keep them relax while they were going through these twists and turns of the caverns, the flooded caverns. we also spoke to a thai navy seal diver. he used to be with the devi seals but had been called back up by his friends. he said that he saw many of the boys sleeping in their stretches. some of th

that i'm joined by niels boyish from the german cave rescue association he has extensive experience with large scale rescue operations in deep caves mr british we certainly appreciate you taking the time to talk with us tonight we have heard several different possibilities for hell rescuers could and should proceed at this moment i mean what do you think is their best option. the best option it's difficult to say here from germany there are talking about two options at the moment still see a third one that did maybe can reach the case system. directly from that stuff ace because cave collecting the water from the surface we're passages down to the water level and maybe they found there another passage that would be defined as option because then they can leave to cave on the driveway but that would require time because the rescue workers they would have to find this shaft that you're talking about right. right and the chance to find it. nearly only fifty percent dead it's still good to work on the other options will be one hundred percent there. the one option is to wait and the other option is to do that cave diving. board closed or hidden

that i'm joined by niels boyish from the german cave rescue association he has extensive experience with large scale rescue operations in deep caves mr british we certainly appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today i we have heard several different possibilities for hell rescuers could should proceed at this moment i mean what do you think is their best option. the best option it's difficult to say here from germany there are talking about two options at the moment i still see a third one that did maybe can reach the cave system by shafts directly from that stuff ace because the cave collecting the water from the surface we're passages down to the water level and maybe they found there another passage that would be defined as option the kids down and they can leave to cave on the driveway that but that would require time because the rescue workers they would have to find this shaft that you're talking about right. right and the chance to find it. nearly only fifty percent dead so it's still good to work on the other options will be one hundred percent there. the one option is to wait and the other option is to do that cave diving.