Thais rejoice at success of dramatic cave rescue

CHIANG RAI, Thailand — Thailand celebrated the successful mission to free 12 boys and their football coach from a cave yesterday, with the nation heaping praise on the rescue team as the triumphant tagline Hooyah pinballed across social media.

The nerve-shredding threeday mission ended on Tuesday with the final group of four boys and the coach emerging from the cave which had held them captive for 18 days.

The rescue received blanket coverage in Thai media with newspapers The Nation running the headline Hooyah! Mission accomplished and the Bangkok Post emblazoned with All Wild Boars saved.

Despite spending days in the dark, dank cave health officials said the boys — who are aged 11 to 16 — are in good physical and mental health and eating normal food.

“It might be because they were all together as a team, helping each other out,” public health ministry inspector general Thongchai Lertwilairatanapong told reporters, singling out their 25-year-old coach for keeping their spirits high.

The group remain in quarantine in Chiang Rai hospital where one of the last batch of people to leave the cave has “minor pneumonia”, he said.

Some of the first boys to be freed have been able to see their parents, he added.

The saga of the Wild Boars gripped the world, with the lives of the group hanging in the balance as the threat of heavy rain injected urgency to an already perilous extraction bid.

Yesterday a few hundred Thai school children gathered opposite the hospital, chanting thanks to those who helped and looking up at the building that will be home to the rescued football team for the coming days.

Elsewhere Duangduen Sittiwongsa, a classmate of 16year-old Pheeraphat “Night” Sompiengjai, whose birthday fell on the same day the team entered the cave, said they would give him cake and gifts when he came back to school.

“We will sing a song for him,” she said.

Risky rescue

Rescuers had weighed up several options to save the boys, including keeping them in the cave through the months-long monsoon season.

But they were prodded into the dangerous task of “diving out” the team through submerged chambers and claustrophobic passages as oxygen levels in the cave plummeted and rains menaced.

The group were led out in three batches by a team of 13 international divers flanked by the Thai Navy SEALs, who greeted each successful rescue with a Hooyah on their Facebook page.

That sign off quickly turned into a hashtag shared across social media, where luminaries of business, politics and sport extended their best wishes to the team and the rescuers.

Authorities have shrouded the details of the rescue bid in secrecy, with fragments of information emerging about the heroic efforts of the dive team.

“I’m very happy and relieved. I haven’t been able to sleep for days. I’m happy that the boys are out too,” said Khamluh Guntawong, the grandfather of team coach Ekkapol Chantawong.

“He really cares for the boys,” he added, of a figure who is emerging as something of a hero for shepherding the children through their ordeal.

The group became trapped in rising floodwaters and were found nine days later emaciated and dishevelled on a muddy ledge, with water lapping ominously below.

The saga captivated a global audience for over two weeks, rewarding them with a remarkable happy ending.

French football star Paul Pogba dedicated his country’s World Cup semi-final victory over Belgium to “the heroes of the day, well done boys, you are so strong”. — AFP