Eighth boy is rescued: Two thirds of soccer team are FREED from Thai cave and flown to hospital – leaving just four children and their coach trapped 800 meters underground
Four more boys have been rescued from the cave in the northern Chiang Rai region, Thailand, on Monday
Another four team members and their coach now remain underground and will be rescued later this week
Hazardous rescue operations to save 12 young Thai footballers from a flooded cave began Sunday morning
Four members of the football team were brought out on Sunday evening and taken to hospital
By SARA MALM and NICK FAGGE
DAILYMAIL.COM
9 July 2018
Four more boys have been rescued today from the cave complex in northern Thailand where a youth football team became trapped two weeks ago, leaving just four teammates and their football coach stuck underground.
The first of today’s rescued Wild Boar FC players, whose identities have not yet been confirmed, was seen being carried out on a stretcher shortly before 5pm local time, a few hours after the mission entered its second day.
Boys number six and seven were brought out little over an hour later, with boy number eight spotted being taken out shortly afterwards.
They were all carried out on stretchers and into ambulances before being airlifted to the Chiang Rai Pranukroh Hospital, where the four players rescued on Sunday are recovering.
The 12 youth team players and their 25-year-old coach went missing on June 23, having become trapped inside the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in the northern Chiang Rai region by rising flood water.
‘The sixth and the seventh Wild Boar are out of the cave,’ a relative of one of them told MailOnline. ‘They got out at about 6.30pm.
‘They are in the field hospital now. Then they will go to the hospital in Chiang Rai.’
The first rescue of today came shortly after the commander of the mission, Narongsak Osottanakorn, said ‘oxygen bottles are ready… in the next few hours we will have good news’.
He announced the operation had restarted four hours ahead of schedule on Monday morning.
Meanwhile, worried parents waiting at the entrance – many of whom have been holding 24-hour vigils despite the overnight rains – say they are still not being told ‘anything’ about which boys are about to emerge from the cave, and can do nothing but wait.
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