A governor in Thailand says rescue divers have found a soccer team of 12 boys and their coach alive more than a week after the group went missing in a cave. Thai Navy SEALs released a video on Facebook showing the moment rescuers first found the team.
In the five-minute video, the boys are quiet as they sit on their haunches, legs bent in front of them. They are clad in the uniforms they apparently were wearing on the morning they disappeared in the cave.
“You are very strong,” one of the rescuers says to them in English. One of them asks what day it is, and the rescuer responds, “Monday. Monday. You have been here 10 days.”
Chiang Rai provincial Governor Narongsak Osatanakorn said medics are evaluating the boys to see if their health is in good condition and will care for them until they are strong enough to move on their own.
“We found them safe, but the operation isn’t over,” he said in comments broadcast nationwide, referring to the complicated process of extricating them.
Family members of the missing hugged each other as they cheered the news.
A happy family member shows members of a boys soccer team found by rescue divers inside Tham Luang cave after the team and their coach went missing for over a week at Khun Nam Nang Non Forest Park in Chiang Rai, Thailand, July 2, 2018.
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Aisha Wiboonrungrueng, the mother of 11-year-old Chanin Wiboonrungrueng, smiled and hugged her family as news of their discovery spread. She said she would cook her son a Thai fried omelet, his favorite food, when he returns home.
Rescue divers had spent much of Monday making preparations for a final push to locate the lost soccer players, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach. They disappeared when flooding trapped them after entering the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Chiang Rai on June 23.
Narongsak said the divers located the missing about 300 yards past a section of the cave that was on higher ground and was thought to be where the team members and their coach may have taken shelter.
“When the medics have evaluated the kids to see if their health is in good condition, we will care for them until they have enough strength to move by themselves, and then we will evaluate the situation on bringing them out again later,” Narongsak said.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha thanked the international experts and rescuers who helped locate the missing for their “tremendous efforts.”
Divers located the missing about 300-400 meters past a section of the cave that was on higher ground.
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“The Royal Thai Government and the Thai people are grateful for this support and cooperation, and we all wish the team a safe and speedy recovery,” Prayuth’s office said in a statement.
Thai navy SEAL divers and rescue workers from other countries had made initial progress through a narrow passageway early Monday after passing through a key chamber on Sunday whose high, murky waters had previously blocked their progress.
Gov. Narongsak had said earlier that the passageway goes upward in some places and downward in others and is extremely narrow, making it difficult for divers and their gear to fit through.
Divers have been stymied repeatedly by rising water that forced them to withdraw for safety reasons. When water levels fell Sunday, the divers went forward with a more methodical approach, deploying a rope line and extra oxygen supplies along the way.
The SEALs’ Facebook page said that since Sunday night, the divers had reached a bend where the half-mile-long passage splits in two directions. The divers were aiming for a sandy chamber on higher ground in the cave.
Narongsak explained early Monday that fixing rope lines and deploying oxygen tanks along their route will allow the divers to operate.
In addition to the divers, teams have been working to pump out water as well as divert groundwater. Other efforts have focused on finding shafts on the mountainside that might serve as a back door to the blocked-off areas.
Teams have been combing the mountainside looking for fissure that might lead to such shafts. Several have been found and explorers have been able to descend into some.
Experts in cave rescues from around the world had gathered at the site. An official Australian group has followed a U.S. military team, British cave experts, Chinese lifesaving responders and several other volunteer groups from various countries.
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