A father of a missing footballer thanks soldiers near Tham Luang cave following news all members of the children's football team and their coach were alive in the cave.Twelve boys and their football coach trapped in a flooded Thai cave for nine days were found alive late Monday after a painstaking search by specialist divers who finally discovered the group on a mud embankment.
There had been no contact with the boys, aged between 11 and 16, since they went missing with their 25-year-old coach on June 23.
The massive international rescue effort had for days been slowed by heavy rains that flooded the Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand, blocking access to chambers where divers hoped the group could be found alive. But late Monday the Chiang Rai provincial governor broke the news of their rescue by naval divers, saying that the response team “will take care of them until they can move.”
“We will bring food to them and a doctor who can dive. I am not sure they can eat as they have not eaten for a while,” said governor Narongsak Osottanakorn
Footage shared on the official Facebook page of the Thai Navy SEALS showed the skinny boys in oversized, mud-slicked football jerseys crowded together on a small mud cliff surrounded by water as rescuers finally found them.
Earlier Monday divers took advantage of a brief window of good weather to move further into the cave, with the water levels dropping slowly but steadily every hour thanks to round-the-clock pumping. They had hoped to find the “Wild Boar” team on an elevated ledge dubbed “Pattaya beach”.
A timeline of the Thailand cave rescue
But the boys had retreated 300-400 metres further as the ledge was submerged, Governor Narongsak added.
The team’s trials appear far from over; divers are planning a complex operation which will attempt to bring the group several kilometres through the cave, which is still partially submerged, while dealing with predictions of heavy rain later this week. The Thai Navy SEAL divers were joined by three British cave divers and a team of American military personnel from the US Pacific Command, including pararescue and survival specialists.
The football team went into the Tham Luang cave, one of Thailand’s longest and toughest to navigate, on June 23 after a training session and became stranded when heavy rains cut them off from the entrance.
A sign outside the site warns visitors not to enter the cave during the rainy season between July and November.