Thais have taken to social media to show sympathy for the relatives and rescue teams praying and searching for 12 young football players and their 26-year-old coach who have been trapped in a labyrinthine cave network in Mae Sai district of Chiang Rai since Saturday.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Line are full of messages and photos wishing them well as the clock ticks on efforts to locate and safely retrieve the young athletes, who are aged 11-16, from Tham Luang cave near the Myanmar border as the search was set to enter its sixth day today.
Rescue workers have been searching since the group was found to be missing on Saturday evening, with over 1,000 personnel including Navy Seal divers now deployed and working around the clock. Reports say the US recently dispatched rescue workers from Hawaii to help out as relatives pray for a miracle in a makeshift camp near the cave.
Yet the rescue teams have been forced to work under difficult conditions due to the persistent rainfall in the area as parts of the complex cave network remain flooded and water levels have been rising despite efforts to pump the water out.
As of press time there had still been no sign of the missing group apart from some belongings and hand- and footprints found in one of the chambers closer to the main entrance of the 10-kilometre-long cave.
Many social media users have posted group photos of the football team with messages of hope such as "Don't give up!" to show their solidarity.
The Thai-language equivalent of the hashtag #TeamMoopa -- a reference to the amateur football team's name, "Moo Pa" or "The Wild Boars" -- is being used to identify related posts on Twitter. A search for the same words in English turned up no results but there were some updates being posted under #CaveSearch.
One Thai account by the name of @jubjibhathairat Tweeted: "The only football team I'm supporting during this World Cup is Team Moopa. Please don't give up." The message was retweeted thousands of times.
Meanwhile, a Facebook user named Aunzgreenlife wrote: "I hope this ends well ... good luck to all concerned and my thoughts are with the families of these poor kids. The rescue teams should be praised for their non-stop efforts as well."
Facebook user Lacasza Hunza wrote: "I hope all of them are safe and survive this hardship. I pray they will be rescued soon and can tell us their story from their own mouths."
Rock star Artiwara "Toon" Khongmalai -- who sings for the popular Thai rock band Bodyslam and who famously ran across the nation for charity in December -- showed his moral support by posting a related photo on the Facebook page Kaokonlakao.
One of the missing boys, whose nickname is "Titan", took part in Toon's charity run, which raised more than 1.1 billion baht for public hospitals, according to the page.
Meanwhile, deputy national police chief Chalermkiat Srivorakhan warned Thai people to be careful when reading and watching media reports about this incident as police have found related donation scams.
Pol Gen Chalermkiat said that police will take legal action against those people who have set up Facebook pages pretending to be parents of the 12 missing footballers in a bid to get people to send them money.
The Royal Thai Police's Technology Crime Suppression Division has been instructed to investigate such cases and eal with them severely, Pol Gen Chalermkiat said.
