MAE SAI, Thailand -- Expert divers Sunday rescued four of 12 boys from a flooded cave in northern Thailand where they were trapped with their soccer coach for more than two weeks.
"After 16 days of waiting ... we saw the boys' faces," said Chiang Rai acting Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn, who is overseeing the mission.
Thai Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda said early today that the same divers who took part in Sunday's rescue will also conduct the next operation because they know the cave conditions and what to do. Eight of the boys and the coach remained inside the Tham Luang Nang Non cave complex in the country's north, and Anupong said divers today need to place more air canisters along the underwater route.
But the success of the initial evacuation raised hopes that all will be out soon, although officials said the rescue could take up to four days to complete.
"The operation went much better than expected," Narongsak said. He had dubbed Sunday "D-day" as the complicated effort was launched in the morning.
Narongsak said 10 cave divers had accompanied the boys through the journey.
"They hugged the boys beneath them while they were wearing full-face masks," he said.
A total of 90 divers, including 50 foreigners, have been involved in the entire operation, Narongsak said. The Americans on site include an Air Force rescue support team of about 30 divers, survival specialists and medical and logistics experts.
The divers were needed for the key leg of the rescue: finding the boys where they have been sheltering, and taking them through more than a mile of dark, tight and twisting passageways filled with muddy water and strong currents. Visibility is close to zero at some points, and the water has flowed so rapidly in some places that even experienced divers have had to stop or turn back.
It usually takes divers about five hours from where the boys were to reach chamber three, a dry point where the Thai navy SEALs have set up a command post, and from which rescue officials said the boys could likely walk the rest of the way.
Rescue teams had installed a static rope along the dive path, giving the boys a guide, and experienced divers were reportedly positioned at various points along the way for assistance.
The plan had been for the first team member to emerge around 9 p.m. local time, but things went more quickly: The first exited at around 5:40 p.m., he said. The fourth emerged around 7:50.
The Facebook page for the Thai navy SEALs announced that "Wild Boar No. 4 is out of the cave," in a reference to the team's mascot name, the Wild Boars.
"Today, everything was very smooth," Narongsak said. "We have been practicing for the past three to four days, rain or shine."
He told reporters that the four boys were taken to the hospital in the town of Chiang Rai, the provincial capital, for evaluation, and the next phase of the operation was to resume after about 10-20 hours.
The names of the rescued boys were not released, but a Facebook Messenger group organized by some of the parents identified two of the rescued players. One, Mongkol Boonpiam, was said to be among those ailing the worst. The other player was identified as Prajak Sutham.
Narongsak's announcement, at a news conference more than an hour after helicopters and ambulances were seen rushing from the cave area, drew cheers and applause. To ensure a clear path for getting evacuees to the hospital and to safeguard their privacy, authorities had ordered the media to move away from the cave before the boys emerged.
Monsoon rains started falling soon after the announcement and lasted for several hours. Rescuers were uncertain early this morning how the rain affected the water levels inside the cave, though they were upbeat about the dry morning and overcast skies and were hopeful of starting the next rescue by 5 p.m. local time.
They were rejoicing Sunday night, as well. Thai navy SEALs posted a celebratory note on their Facebook page, saying: "Have sweet dreams everyone. Good night. Hooyah."
FEW CHOICES
The high-risk rescue dive began with a sense of urgency after authorities could not settle on an alternative means of getting the boys out. Drilling a hole into the mountainside to lift them to safety -- as 33 Chileans were rescued from a collapsed mine in 2010 -- was dismissed because the boys' location couldn't be pinpointed accurately, and it wasn't clear how drilling could alter the mountain's geology.
Some officials initially said that the boys could remain where they were -- on a dry rock ledge near a point inside the cave known as Pattaya Beach -- for up to several months as long as they were supplied with food and medicines. But authorities became worried in recent days as oxygen levels inside the cave dropped, partly because of a high presence of rescue workers.
The boys and their coach had become stranded when they were exploring the cave after a practice game on June 23. Monsoon flooding cut off their escape route and prevented rescuers from finding them for almost 10 days.
The ordeal has riveted Thailand and captured the world's attention. The search and rescue operation has involved dozens of international experts and rescuers, including a U.S. military team.
Elon Musk's Space X rocket company tested a "kid-sized submarine" in California on Sunday afternoon, saying the device would be placed on a 17-hour flight to Thailand if the tests were successful.
A spokesman for Musk's Boring Co. tunneling unit, which has four engineers at the cave, has said Thai officials requested the device, which the company said could potentially help the children through the narrow passageways. Musk on Sunday afternoon posted a video of a diver testing the device in a pool. He wrote on Twitter, "With some mods, this could also work as an escape pod in space."
Officials said conditions were as perfect as they could be for Sunday's rescue attempt, factoring in the weather, the water and oxygen levels in the cave, as well as the boys' health, which has been assessed in the cave by an Australian doctor.
"The kids are so strong, physically and mentally," Narongsak said.
All of the boys in the cave have been learning to dive only since July 2, when the first searchers found them. Some of the boys are only now learning how to swim, further complicating the rescue effort.
In Southeast Asia, not knowing how to swim is normal. A key reason is that many mothers in the region believe that teaching their children to swim will increase the risk of them drowning, said Michael Linnan, the technical director at the Alliance for Safe Children, a nonprofit based in Atlanta that has worked extensively in the region.
Linnan said it was not uncommon to see rates of swimming in low- and middle-income countries that are "well below" 20 percent, even among sailors, fishermen and others who earn their living on the water.
In Thailand, the Health Ministry reported in 2014 that drowning was the primary cause of death among children under 15. It said an average of four children in Thailand died every day from drowning, a rate that was five to 15 times higher than those for developed countries.
Linnan, a former medical epidemiologist for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he hoped events at Tham Luang Cave would be a "teachable moment," highlighting a need on a national scale for further efforts to prevent drowning.
"I hope that will be the silver lining in this cloud," he said.
Cave rescue experts consider an underwater escape to be a last resort, especially with people untrained in diving. The death Friday of a former Thai navy SEAL, Saman Gunan, underscored the risks. Gunan died on a mission to place oxygen canisters along the route.
A TOWN CELEBRATES
In the town of Mae Sai, where the trapped boys' soccer team is based, residents and family members were cheering the sound of every helicopter and ambulance they heard, in an uproar of celebration at the news that boys were leaving the cave Sunday.
"I am so happy!" said Kamon Chanthapun, an adviser to the team. "I was so worried because they are just children, stuck for so long in the dark."
Young men rode in the back of flatbed trucks, cruising the streets and cheering.
Mae Sai is a town that thrives on border commerce. Some residents have relatives across the border in Burma, and thousands cross over from that country each day to work, trade or attend school in Thailand.
One of the boys in the cave, Adul Sam-on, is a student at the Ban Wiang Phan school in the town. Inside, students had written messages on heart-shaped sticky notes placed up in a big heart shape on a bulletin board with optimistic messages. "Hopefully our friend can come out safely," read one.
Adul was the boy who spoke to British divers in English in the video that announced to the world that the team had finally been found, after 10 days stuck in the flooded Tham Luang Cave.
The head coach for the soccer team, Nopparat Khanthawong, who did not enter the cave with the others two weeks ago, said: "I'm happy that children are coming out. All I can do is to send my prayers and support to the children and rescuers."
He added: "We don't know the physical condition of the boys. Please keep them coming!"
President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday: "The U.S. is working very closely with the Government of Thailand to help get all of the children out of the cave and to safety. Very brave and talented people!"
Information for this article was contributed by Tassanee Vejpongsa and Kaweewit Kaewjinda of The Associated Press; by Shashank Bengali and George Styllis of the Los Angeles Times; by Shibani Mahtani of The Washington Post; and by Richard C. Paddock, Muktita Suhartono, Hannah Beech and Mike Ives of The New York Times.
A Section on 07/09/2018