Missing boys and coach found alive

TWELVE boys and their football coach were found alive after nine days of having gone missing in caves in Thailand.

They were found at the Tham Luang caves in Chiang Rai by a special forces navy team that was hampered by rising water and mud which impeded access.

An official who was part of the search team told The Post that “all of them are safe but extremely exhausted”.

Earlier, classmates of those missing expressed hope they would be found.

There had been no contact with the boys, aged between 11 and 16, since they went missing with their football coach.

The massive rescue effort was earlier hampered by rains that flooded the cave in northern Thailand, blocking access to chambers where it is hoped the group will be found alive.

Divers took advantage of a brief window of good weather on Monday to edge further into the cave, with forecasters predicting downpours could return in the coming days.

Friends and teachers of the “Wild Boar” football team refused to give up hope of seeing the players again.

Tilek Jana, 14, whose friend Prajak is among the missing, expressed his wish that his friend will soon return.

“Let him come and let’s play [football] together, I miss him,” he told AFP.

The principal of Mae Sai Prasitsart school, which is attended by six of the boys, said it had been a painful week. “We chant, pray and send our support to them to give them power to wait for help to arrive,” Kanet Pongsuwan said.

Officials on Monday said the divers were less than a kilometre from an elevated area called Pattaya Beach where the boys are thought to be stranded.

“We are fighting against time and water to save the 13 lives,” Chiang Rai Governor Narongsak Osottanakorn said.

Scores of divers – including foreign experts – have been sent into the cave with hundreds of oxygen tanks, establishing a base camp inside the chambers over the weekend.

Weary-faced relatives have camped out at the cave’s entrance for more than a week, desperately waiting for news from the boys, while the head of the Buddhist clergy has urged prayers from a nation fixated on the fate of the group.

The youth football team and their 25-year-old assistant coach went into the cave on June 23 after a training ses- sion and got stuck when heavy rains cut them off from the entrance.

Rescuers found their bicycles, football boots and backpacks near the cave’s entrance, and discovered handprints and footprints further in.

But those are the only signs of the boys so far and no one knows if they are still alive.

They likely have access to fresh water inside the cave and officials believe they brought snacks into the cave and pos- sibly headlamps too.

Even without food experts have said young, athletic boys could survive for several weeks if they are not injured – and don’t attempt to escape through deep floods.

Yet is remains a perilously urgent rescue.

Officials have dropped survival kits with food, medical supplies and a cave map into a crevice in the hope some of the relief will reach the boys.