Teenagers lost in cave were 'looking for Pokemon'

A group of teenagers who were rescued from a cave in Wiltshire were "looking for Pokemon".

Fire crews were called out to the site at Boxfields near Corsham on Thursday. They say the group got lost when they were using the new Pokemon Go app.

There have been several other incidents across the region following the release of the new app which has taken the UK by storm.

There were reports earlier in the week that an adult shop in Plymouth had seen a huge increase in the amount of people passing through its doors - because youngsters were trying "to catch" rare characters.

But what is all the hype about? How can you play? And what do you need to know if your children are playing it?

What is Pokemon Go?

Pokémon Go is an augmented reality game (computer generated images on the real world when viewed on the phone's screen) which gets people to go out and catch virtual monsters using a person's location on their phone.

How do you play?

You walk around local landmarks - or Pokestops - where you can gather supplies such as Pokeballs.

When you find online "pocket monsters" or Pokémon you throw your Pokeballs at them and capture them for training.

At other locations called "gyms" - Pokémon battle each other for supremacy.

Just how popular is it?

In the next couple of days, the game is expected to have more daily active users than Twitter. In America, three per cent of the population are daily active users, and of these, people spend an average of 43 minutes and 23 seconds on it per day, higher than Whatsapp, Instagram, or Snapchat.

The game's popularity helped Nintendo's share price jump by nearly a quarter on Monday, adding £4.5 billion pounds to the company's value.

A leading children's charity has called for security features of Pokemon Go to be reassessed. The NSPCC said it's concerned that "basic safety standards appear to have been overlooked".