Body odor has been revealed as the reason divers found the Thai youth football team.
The British diver said that finding the Thai youth football team in the cave was not a matter of luck or chance. His team tracked them down using their body odor.
British divers Rick Stanton (right) and John Volanthen (Photo: Reuters)
Answering interview questionsBBCOn July 12th, British diver John Volanthen stated that they had utilized their keen sense of smell to locate the Thai youth football team members trapped in Tham Luang cave.
"Some media outlets have said that finding the children was just luck, but I want to say that's not entirely true," Volanthen said, refuting earlier reports that the divers were simply lucky to find the team because their ropes along the cave ran out and they were forced to surface.
| The moment Thai special forces rescued the young football team. |
The diver added: "Our method in this situation is that we swim along the underwater passage in the cave, and whenever there's space above, we surface, shout, and sniff. In this case, we smelled the children's bodies before we saw or heard them."
"The video (of the moment the team was found) that you saw is only part of the story. What you couldn't see was that we had already removed most of our equipment, ready to surface and search for the children," Volanthen continued.
Twelve footballers aged 11-16 and their 25-year-old coach were trapped in the flooded Tham Luang cave since June 23. Two British divers found them alive on a rocky outcrop about 4km from the cave entrance on the evening of July 2.
After finding the children, the rescue team needed more than five days before beginning the rescue operation on July 8th. The three-day rescue operation successfully brought all 13 members of the soccer team to safety.
