FOUND ALIVE!
After NINE days lost in flooded caves, jubilation as 12 Thai boys are discovered by rescuers
FOR nine days, 12 boys and their soccer coach were trapped in a flooded cave while a frantic search continued and their relatives staged an increasingly desperate vigil.
But last night the missing group was finally found alive in a treacherous labyrinth in northern Thailand – after reportedly being sighted by a caver.
The discovery brought elation as a complex rescue operation began to the bring boys, aged between 11 and 16, and their coach, 25, out from the winding, waterlogged tunnels.
Photographs from the scene showed joyful relatives looking at a picture on an iPad taken by one of the rescue divers showing four of the boys smiling and looking in good health.
Family members of the missing wept with relief and hugged each other as they and the rescue team cheered the news.
Tinnakorn Boonpiem, whose 12-year-old son Mongkol is among the 13, said: ‘I’m so glad... I want to him to be physically and mentally fit.’ Aisha Wiboonrungrueng, the mother of one of the boys, 11-year-old Chanin, said she would cook her son a Thai fried omelette, his favourite food, when he returns home.
Another relative of one of one of the group, with tears of joy streaming down his cheeks, said: ‘I’m so happy I can’t put it into words.’
The governor of Chang Rai province Narongsak Osottanakorn said Thai special forces had found the missing group in the 10km-long Tham Luang Nang Non cave. He said: ‘I confirm they are all safe. But the work is far from over – we still have to get them out.’
The group, from the Wild Boar soccer team, have been missing since cycling to the cave complex with their coach, Ekkapol Janthawong, on June 23 after a training session They became stranded in pitch-black tunnels by a flash flood, prompting a round-theclock search involving military divers, heat-seeking drones and an underwater robot.
Relatives have kept up a grim vigil under a tent not far from the cave’s flooded entrance, near the Burma and Laos borders. Buddhist monks have led prayers for the boys’ safety.
A cave rescue team, who were using communication equipment that could transmit messages through thick rock, joined local and international experts in the search. Divers had been stymied repeatedly by rising water that forced them to withdraw. When water levels fell on Sunday, the divers were able to adopt a more methodical approach, deploying a rope line and extra oxygen supplies.
One team had even drilled a hole in the side of the hill to create a new passageway into the cavern.
Earlier yesterday divers took advantage of a brief window of good weather to edge further into the cave, with the water levels dropping slowly every hour thanks to round-the-clock pumping.
Then, in the dead of night last night, came the shout: ‘We’ve found them – all 13!’
Officials described the first sighting of the group after a rescue team had managed to make their way up through muddy, gushing water. Torchlight picked them out, huddled on their rocky platform where they had been huddled day after day. ‘Fortunately they had not attempted to get into the water to try to make their way out,’ said one official. ‘That could have been disastrous.’
It had taken a naval special forces team to reach the boys.
A Facebook video posed by the Thai navy group revealed the first moments after the dramatic discovery ‘How many of you?’ the rescuer, who appeared to be English, asked. ‘Thirteen!’ came the reply. ‘Thirteen? Brilliant!’
Divers and climbers from the UK, US, Germany, China and the Philippines were involved. With them was a radio system that can transmit messages for hundreds of metres through solid rock.
Britons Richard Stanton, Robert Harper and John Volanthen are global experts in exploring underground systems and were sent ‘as they are the best’ for the job. They were given equipment from Derbyshire Cave Rescue.
The rescuers had inched their way up through one of the flooded chambers towards an area called Pattaya Beach, where the boys were picked up in torchlight huddled on a wet rock platform.
The governor said the plan was to drain all the water from the area before attempting to move the 13. ‘We’re now planning how to send a nurse and doctor inside to check on their health and movement.’
Doctors believe that having been crouched on a ledge for days the boys might have difficulty moving their limbs. ‘We have to go slowly, carefully, so there is much work left to do,’ said one official. Details have yet to emerge on whether the group had food with them.
Anmar Mirza, a leading US cave rescue expert, said many challenges remain. He said the primary decision is whether to try to evacuate the boys and their coach or to supply them in place.
Mr Mirza, co-ordinator of the US National Cave Rescue Commission, said: ‘Trying to take non-divers through a cave is one of the most dangerous situations possible, even if the dives are relatively easy.’
MOMENT THEY WERE FOUND 2KM BELOW GROUND