A cave complex in Thailand where 12 schoolboys and their soccer coach were trapped for more than two weeks before they were safely brought out will be turned into a museum to showcase the rescue, the head of the operation said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Two British divers found the 12 boys and their coach in a cavern in the flooded Tham Luang cave system in the northern province of Chiang Rai on Monday last week, nine days after they went missing during an excursion.<\/p>\n
They were all brought safely following a mission fraught with obstacles that ended late on Tuesday. A Thai rescue diver died last Friday, highlighting the dangers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis area will become a living museum, to show how the operation unfolded,\u201d the head of rescue mission, Narongsak Osottanakorn, told a news conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn interactive data base will be set up\u201d he said. \u201cIt will become another major attraction for Thailand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thai officials say the fate of the boys and the multinational rescue has put the cave firmly on the map and plans are in place to develop it into a tourist destination.<\/p>\n
But Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said on Tuesday extra precautions would have be implemented both inside and outside the cave to safeguard tourists.<\/p>\n
A guide book describes the relatively unexplored Tham Luang cave as having an \u201cimpressive entrance chamber\u201d leading to a marked path and then a series of chambers and boulders.<\/p>\n
Villagers say it is known to be prone to flooding and many have urged authorities to post clearer warnings.<\/p>\n
Chongklai Worapongsathorn, deputy director-general of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, said the cave would be closed from Thursday but did not say for how long.<\/p>\n
He said plans were in place to \u201crevive\u201d an adjacent national park where hundreds of rescue workers and military personnel set up camp during the search and rescue.<\/p>\n
Superstitious Thais have been gripped by a legend about the cave – the full name of which is Tham Luang Nang Non or \u201ccave of the reclining lady\u201d.<\/p>\n
Legend has it that a beautiful princess ran away to the cave with her commoner lover. Her father sent soldiers to kill the lover, prompting the princess to commit suicide.<\/p>\n
Surrounding mountains took on the shape of her body.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A cave complex in Thailand where 12 schoolboys and their soccer coach were trapped for more than two weeks before they were safely brought out will be turned into a museum to showcase the rescue, the head of the operation said on Wednesday. Two British divers found the 12 boys and their coach in a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2627,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625\/revisions\/2627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}