steve whitlock, it has been fascinating. thank you. thank you.from around the world taking place. as we heard, this is an international story, an international rescue operation. we are hearing from the us, from president donald trump, who will be visiting the uk next week. he has said, the us is working closely with the government of thailand to help get all of the children out of the cave and to safety. very brave and talented people. i must add that other countries are involved in this rescue, including the uk, the us and australia, and the thai people themselves. you are watching bbc news. those pictures you are seeing around the rescue site at the cave entrance. earlier i spoke to our correspondent, nick beake, who is outside the chiang rai hospital, where we believe the boys will have been taken to. we have seen two ambulances raced into the hospital. we do not know who is inside but we know that the ambulances left the cave complex, which is about an hour away from here, so they have raced along the road to this point. arribas source at the

earlier i spoke to lt colonel steve whitlock who was part of a 2004 rescue mission in one of the world'save systems in mexico city. it is good news that we are starting to see people come out of the cave. but it is not over until it is over. you go through a period of seeing success, but the rescue is not over until all of the people are out, including the divers. it is good news that we are starting to see people come through those difficult passages and get out of that cave. i would caution people to be a little bit careful, because we have still got an awful lot of people that have to come out of that cave, and we're yet to see the remaining members of the team come through. you have been part of a rescue team, as i said earlier. it took place in mexico city. how closely does that event resemble what we're seeing now in thailand? in some ways, it is very similar. we rescued a group of six cavers from a similar situation. the big difference was it was part of a contingency plan. although it was a rescue plan, we were aware the cave was flooded, we had a data—logger in there for three y

earlier i spoke about the rescue to lt colonel steve whitlock — who was part of a 200a rescue missionico city. it is good news that we are starting to see people come out of the cave, but it is not over until it's over. you go for a period of seeing success, but the rest isn't over until all of the people are out of the cave, including the rescuers. so there is a way to go yet, but it's really good news that we are starting to see people come through those difficult passages and get out of that cave, but i would caution people just to be a little bit careful because we've still got an awful lot of people that have got to come out of that cave, and obviously we have still yet to see the remaining members of the team to come through. ok, so you have been part of a rescue team as i said earlier that took place in mexico city. how closely does that event resemble what we are seeing now in thailand? in some ways it is very similar. so, we rescued a group of six cavers from a similar situation. the big difference was that it was part of a contingency plan. although it was a rescue, we were

earlier my colleagues spoke to lieutenant colonel steve whitlock who was part of a mission in one of the biggest cave systems in mexico city. it is good news that we are starting to see people come out of the cave. but it is not over until it is over. you go through a period of seeing success, but the rescue is not over until all of the people are out , including the divers. it is good news that we are starting to see people come through this difficult passages and get out of that cave. i would caution people to be a little bit careful, because we have still got an awful of people that have to come out of that cave, and we're yet to see the remaining neighbours ——members of the team come through. you have been part of a rescue team, as i said earlier. it took place in mexico city. how closely does that event resemble what we're seeing now in thailand? in some ways, it is very similar. we rescued a group of six cavers from a similar situation. the big difference was it was part of a contingency plan. although it was a rescue plan, we were aware it was flooded, we had a data—logger in

we are nowjoined by lt colonel steve whitlock, who was part of the 2004 expedition which resulted in n being trapped in one of the world's biggest cave systems in mexico city although he was not of those trapped. steve then coordinated the rescue with british diver rick stanton, the same diver who has just found the children in the flooded cave in northern thailand. thank you very much indeed for joining us. we were hearing in that recent report, various options but all of them pretty challenging. yes, we face some of the similar challenges back in 2004, but one of the slight advantages we had was we had planned ahead and one of the options that we have considered is exactly options that we have considered is exa ctly o ne options that we have considered is exactly one of the things they are looking at to dive people out. but the difference is we actually prepare the cave in order to do that, so we laid lines, so that people could get out more easily, should the situation occur. going back to that operation in 2004, what did you do in the end to get the people out? we did exactly what

earlier i spoke to lt colonel steve whitlock who was part of a 2004 rescue mission in one of the world'ssystems in mexico city. it is good news that we are starting to see people come out of the cave, but it is not over until it's over. you go for a period of seeing success, but the rest isn't over until all of the people are out of the cave, including the rescuers. so there is a way to go yet, but it's really good news that we are starting to see people come through those difficult passages and get out of that cave, but i would caution people just to be a little bit careful because we've still got an awful lot of people that have got to come out of that cave, and obviously we have still yet to see the remaining members of the team to come through. ok, so you have been part of a rescue team as i said earlier that took place in mexico city. how closely does that event resemble what we are seeing now in thailand? in some ways it is very similar. so, we rescued a group of six cavers from a similar situation. the big difference was that it was part of a contingency plan. although it was a re