Thailand has created an ice sculpture showing international efforts in rescuing young footballers trapped in Tham Luang Tham Luang-Khun Nam Nang Non cave for a competition at the world's biggest ice festival.
Students of Ubon Ratchathani Vocation College spent 18 hours on Sunday to meet the deadline imposed by the organisers for ice art pieces to take part in the 11th International Collegiate Snow Sculpture Contest.
The contest opened for university students to display their skills and the winners will be announced on Monday.
The students from Ubon Ratchathani created the sculpture named "Timeless Friendship", which shows the efforts to successfully take 12 young footballers and their coach out of the cave in Mae Sai district in Chiang Rai in July after flooding blocked them inside for more than two weeks.
The sculpture shows a dragon and a panda in recognition of the festival hosts, a kangaroo to honour Richar Harris, an Australian doctor and his team, a lion to represent a team of divers from the United Kingdom and 13 wild boars, among other details.
The college in the northeastern province won the top prize and the best technique awards at the festival last year.
This time, team supervisor Surachart Palasak hoped for a repeat of the success. "We are confident of winning it again," he said. "We've got it done. It has lots of details for us to work on this time."
The Harbin Ice Festival in northern China runs until February.