As it happened: 12 Thai boys and teacher found alive after nine days in cave
National news has been dominated by updates on the search for 12 boys and their football coach
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Rescuers have found the 12 boys and their football coach who have been missing inside a flooded mountain cave in northern Thailand for more than a week.
“They are all safe, but the mission is not completed, local Governor Narongsak Osatanakorn said. "Our mission is to search, rescue and return, so far we just found them. Next mission is to bring them out from the cave and send them home.“
The Chiang Rai governor said experts would continue to drain the waters out of the cave while sending doctors and nurses to dive in to check the health of the boys and their coach.
“If the doctors say their physical condition is strong enough to be moved, they will take them out from the cave,” he said. “We will look after them until they can return to school.“
Divers from a Thai navy SEAL unit were within 500 metres of a chamber containing an elevated rock where they boys might have sought refuge.
The boys, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach entered Tham Luang cave in Chiang Rai province on 23 June, when heavy rains flooded key passages of the cave and blocked the way out.
National news has been dominated by updates from the search, which involves more than 1,000 personnel, including rescue teams from Britain, the United States and elsewhere.
Progress towards a rescue was slow, as muddy water having risen to fill sections of the cave and forced the divers to withdraw for safety reasons.
When water levels dropped Sunday, divers went forward with a more methodical approach, deploying a rope line and extra oxygen supplies along the way.
Doctors have said the boys could survive for days without food, they needed to find water clean enough to drink.
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 which might serve as a back door to the blocked-off areas where the missing may be sheltering.
Teams have been combing the mountainside looking for fissures which might lead to such shafts.
Several have been found and explorers have been able to descend into some, but so far it is not clear whether they lead to anywhere useful.
Additional reporting by agencies
The pair were flown into Thailand early last week, and found the missing children and their coach on a ledge in a cavern.
More from the video released by Thai authorities showing the missing children as they were found.
"How many of you are there - 13? Brilliant," a member of the multinational rescue team, speaking in English, tells the boys. "You have been here 10 days. You are very strong."
"Thank you so much," one of the boys says.
Two British rescuers are believed to be the first people to speak to the children. According to reports they are Rick Stanton and John Volanthen from the British Cave Rescue Council. As the search for the missing 13 people became increasingly desperate, a group from the UK came over to help with the search.
The youngest member of the football team is 11-year-old Chanin Wibrunrungrueang.
The oldest of the missing people is the team's coach, Ekkapol Janthawong, who is 25 years old.
Despite divers having made contact with the missing 13, they are still inside the Thai caves. It is currently around 4am in Thailand and it is not known how long they will have to stay down there before they can be brought to the surface.
News that the missing 13 had been found was met with celebrations across not only Thailand, but the entire world. Some families of the children held near constant vigils outside the caves, hoping to hear the boys had been found.
The group were found near Parrya Beach, which is a chamber deep inside the Thai caves.
Although currently an incredibly dangerous place during monsoon season, with flooding posing a near-constant threat, during the dry season it is a major tourist spot. However usually people are only ably to go up to around 800m deep, rather than several miles in where the missing group were located.
That's a wrap on The Independent's live coverage of this amazing story unfolding in Thailand. Thanks for joining us!
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