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Thai cave rescue operation ends with all 12 boys safe Thailand cave rescue sparks celebration of 'mission impossible'
(about 1 hour later)
All 12 boys and their football coach have been successfully rescued from a cave in northern Thailand after more than two weeks trapped underground. The last four boys and a football coach trapped inside a northern Thailand cave for more than 17 days have successfully been retrieved, sparking celebrations across Thailand and praise for the daring rescues from around the world.
“The 12 Wild Boars and coach have emerged from the cave and they are safe,” the Thai navy Seal unit said on its official Facebook page. It added: “Hooyah.” “Today Thai people, team Thailand, achieved mission impossible,” said Narongsak Osatanakorn, the head of the joint command centre coordinating the operation to applause and cheers on Tuesday evening.
The final day of the operation began just after 10am on Tuesday as the first eight boys, freed in operations on Sunday and Monday, recuperated at a hospital in the nearest city, Chiang Rai. Before 4pm on Tuesday, the first of the remaining four boys in the cave emerged and was rushed to hospital in the nearest city of Chiang Rai. Confirmation of two more followed soon after.
The weakest boys were the last to be taken out, sources have said. They are understood to include the youngest in the group – 11-year-old Chanin Wiboonrungrueng. About two hours later the Thai navy Seals, who have led the operation, announced the entire Wild Boars football team and their coach had been freed: “The 12 Wild Boars and coach have emerged from the cave and they are safe,” they posted on their official Facebook page. They added their war cry: “Hooyah.”
The “Wild Boars” soccer team and their coach got trapped on 23 June while exploring the cave complex in the northern province of Chiang Rai after soccer practice and a rainy season downpour flooded the tunnels. Three Seals and a doctor who had spent several days inside the chamber with the boys were still making their way out, the post said.
British divers found the 13, hungry and huddled in darkness on a muddy bank in a partly flooded chamber last week. Namhom Boonpiam, whose son Mongkol was among the boys released earlier in the week, told the Guardian she was “happy but sleepy”.
Torrential rain struck the site on Monday evening and it continued through into the morning, but authorities said preparations for the final rescue mission were unaffected. Osatanakorn said that the parents of the boys, who have held a vigil at the cave site throughout the marathon search and rescue operation, would soon be able to see their children in hospital – albeit through a window until doctors could check the children for infections.
“You have seen the rain so you might be wondering – preparation for the third operation has been under way since early morning,” said Narongsak Osatanakorn, the head of the joint command centre coordinating the operation. “We are overjoyed,” he told a press briefing later on Tuesday night that was regularly interrupted by applause. At one point he paused to receive a signal. “Oh excuse me, he said. “Doctor Pak [Loharnshoon] and three seals are now coming out of the cave safe and sound.” The cheering reprised.
“If everything goes right, we will see four kids and a doctor and three Seals that have stayed with the kids will all come out,” he said. “Four plus one coach, so it’s five.” Like the eight rescued in the past two days, the boys and the coach freed on Tuesday will undergo detailed testing of their eyes, nutrition levels and mental health, with blood samples to be sent to Bangkok to test for any infectious diseases. They will only see their relatives through a glass screen initially or from a two-metre distance with the parents wearing a medical gown, face mask and hair net.
The four boys and their coach rescued on Tuesday were airlifted to hospital to join their eight teammates rescued on Sunday and Monday. Health officials said that some of the first boys freed had elevated white-blood cell levels, indicating infections, and two showed signs of pneumonia but were responding well to treatment. “Doctors have treated the boys and now all of them are OK and cheerful. They talk normally. No fever,” said Jesada Chokedamrongsuk, a physician from the Thai ministry of public health. They are expected to be in hospital for at least seven days.
The news was greeted by global jubilation and the rescue workers have been lauded by world leaders. Donald Trump tweeted “great job” and Theresa May said: “The world was watching and will be saluting the bravery of all those involved.” Jesada said the first four boys rescued were able to eat normal food, though not spicy dishes yet.
“We are not sure if this is a miracle, a science or what,” the Seals said on their Facebook page. “The kids are footballers, so they have high immune systems,” Jesada said. “Everyone is in high spirits and is happy to get out. But we will have a psychiatrist to evaluate them.”
Celebrations will be tinged with sadness however over the loss of a former Thai navy diver who died on Friday while on a re-supply mission inside the cave. Tuesday’s mission was the most arduous for the 100 people involved because it required shepherding out the weakest and smallest of the boys. But the atmosphere in Mae Sai was palpably optimistic after two successful operations in previous days and news the rescued boys were healthy and “cheerful”.
The first four boys to be freed were reunited with their parents on Monday night through a glass window. Public health officials would decide on Tuesday whether the second batch could see their families. By the time the 11th boy was out, Thai volunteers were cheering and waving as the helicopters that were ferrying the boys to hospital thundered overhead.
“[The parents] visited them through a window due to disease control,” Osatanakorn said. “If the lab results are negative – no infection or any disease – they can visit but they have to wear [medical] gown, face mask and hair cap.” Confirmation they were free triggered celebrations in Mae Sai and across the country. “I’m so happy,” said Songpol Kanthawong, 13, a teammate of the boys who narrowly missed being trapped along with them, forgetting to bring his bike to training the day the boys cycled out to the site with a picnic lunch.
He said they would need to keep at least 2 metres away from their boys for at least 48 hours, until “we are sure there is no infection, then they can visit them normally”. No boys would be discharged for at least seven days. “At first, I was worried a bit about them diving but I knew they could do it. I missed everyone of them including coach Ekk.”
Jesada Chokedamrongsuk, a physician from the Thai ministry of public health, told a separate press conference at the Chiang Rai hospital that the eight patients were cheerful. He said the football team’s Facebook Messenger thread was already full of plans for what the boys would do with their teammates when they returned.
Two boys among the first group to be freed, who he said were aged between 14 and 16, had shown possible signs of pneumonia and all had low temperatures when they arrived on Monday night. Doctors said the first eight boys to be released would spend at least one week in hospital recuperating. Images of the boys seen by the Guardian showed them in hospital beds with white patches over their eyes, which doctors said was a precaution to help them adjust to the light after more than two weeks in a near-pitch black environment.
“Now they have no fever and can do their normal activities,” Chokedamrongsuk said. “They can have normal food but we are making sure it is easily digestible, not spicy or too strongly flavoured.” Emails purportedly written by Richard Stanton, one of the leaders of the dive team, showed that as late as Sunday night divers were concerned about whether they could free all the boys.
The boys had asked for chocolate spread on bread, which the hospital had provided, he said. They were still wearing sunglasses as a precaution while their eyes adjusted to the light, he added. “We’re worried about the smallest lad,” he wrote to entrepreneur Elon Musk, who developed a mini-submarine for possible use in the operation.
“For the second lot of patients arriving last night, whose ages range from 12 to 14, they arrived with very low body temperature, and one of them had a low heart rate,” he said. The joy on Tuesday was in stark contrast to the gloom at the cave site four days’ earlier, when authorities announced former Thai navy Seal Saman Kunan had asphyxiated while placing air tanks beyond “chamber three”, the most treacherous part of the journey the boys would have to undergo.
“Doctors have treated the boys and now all of them are OK and cheerful. They talk normally. No fever. We’ve started giving them ‘medical food’ this morning.” The same day, authorities revealed the air inside the boys’ chamber was growing increasingly toxic, with monsoon rain forecast to hit within days, increasing water levels and potentially sealing off the boys until January.
He said the second group of four boys would undergo detailed testing of their eyes, nutrition levels and mental health, with blood samples to be sent to Bangkok to test for any infectious diseases. “At first we thought that we could sustain the kids’ lives for a long time where they are now, but now many things have changed,” Rear Adm Arpakorn Yookongkaew, the Thai navy Seal commander, said that morning. “We have a limited amount of time.”
“All of them have an increase in white cells in the blood, which indicates infections, so we have given them antibiotics as a precaution,” Chokedamrongsuk said. A press conference scheduled for Friday night was delayed several times, until Osatanakorn finally emerged at midnight, confirming the rescue was not imminent. “The boys are not suitable [and] cannot dive at this time,” he said.
Overnight, the entrepreneur Elon Musk posted on social media that he had personally delivered a child-sized submarine to the site which he has developed to assist with the operation, but it is unlikely to play a role. By Saturday, authorities were ready to provide a timeline for the first time. The boys would need be removed within three to four days, they said, or stay perched for months on high ground that could shrink to 10 sq metres once the monsoon arrived.
“Although his technology is good and sophisticated, it’s not practical for this mission,” Osatanakorn said after the press conference. Musk later posted correspondence with Richard Stanton, one of the British divers who found the boys, telling him to keep working on the submarine. It rained heavily that evening and by Sunday morning, journalists were being asked to leave the cave site. The two-mile (3.2km) path was not yet fully dry, and the boys would need to squeeze through the flooded passage, breathing through full-face scuba masks – but time was up.
Osatanakorn announced the start of the latest rescue mission to applause and cheers in the local government courtyard that has become a centre for Thai volunteers and the world’s media. “Today we are most ready,” Osatanakorn told a press briefing, shortly after announcing an elite group of Thai and international divers had entered the cave to get the boys. “Today is D-Day,” he said.
The mood was in stark contrast to the glum atmosphere at the site last week, especially after the announcement of the death on Friday of the former Thai navy Seal Saman Kunan, who died while placing air tanks in the cave. Thailand, a country polarised by fractious politics in recent years, has rallied around the Wild Boars, some of who belong to stateless ethnic minority groups that are often stigmatised
The Seals, the key force in the operation, posted on their official Facebook page that Tuesday would be a longer day than Monday. “But we’ll look forward to celebrating the success. Hooyah.” Busloads of volunteers travelled to Chiang Rai to assist, including a group from the southern Trang province whose traditional occupation is to scale mountains collecting bird’s nests to make the delicacy bird’s nest soup.
Additional reporting by Jacob Goldberg and Veena Thoopkrajae “First I heard they needed divers, but then they said they also needed mountain climbers, I thought about my skills using ropes and climbing,” said Nattapong Lekkamnerd, 49, one of eight members of his community who travelled to the cave.
They were part of a team of hundreds that scoured the dense jungle above the cave for days trying to find an shaft that might lead 600 metres down to where the boys were believed to be stranded.
Lekkamnerd said he was struggling to find the words to describe his joy at the news the boys were free. “I am happy, proud, overwhelmed,” he said.
Authorities paid tribute to Kunan, 38, after Tuesday’s operation, calling him “a hero not only for Thais but for the whole world”.
“With this mission complete, may you rest in peace brother Saman, the hero of Tham Luang,” said Thanadej Kongbangpoh, a provincial military official.
Kongbangpoh said they hoped to seize on the international attention their province had received to one day turn the Tham Luang Nang Non cave into a tourist attraction.
“Amid the crisis, we Thais are lucky that we will have a new travel destination, a world renowned one,” he said.
On Tuesday night, Thai navy Seals posted an image of the last four of their members to leave the cave, in sunglasses and surgical masks, giving the thumbs up. The message underneath read: “Hooyah, Hooyah, Hooyah.”
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