Eight more boys have been rescued from flooded caves in Thailand on the second day of operations involving international diving teams.
The Dive teams in Thailand rescued four more boys from a flooded jungle cave Monday and were confident they will also be able to save the remaining four boys and their adult football coach still trapped in the cavern.
Rescuers are have been hustling to bring the football team members out of the Tham Luang Nang Non cave before heavy monsoon rains forecast for the area comes along resulting in the caves being flooded again.
The first four boys were rescued from the cave on Sunday after which rescuers had planned to take a 10- to 20-hour pause to replenish the cave holding the remaining boys with oxygen and give the team of 18 divers who have been leading the boys on a perilous journey to safety a chance to rest.
Rescue efforts on Monday however resumed earlier than planned and rescuers emerged with the fifth boy 6 hours later (about 5pm local time), and three others over the next three hours. Monday’s mission lasted for Nine Hours; two hours less than Sunday’s operations.
The four boys rescued on Monday have been declared as “safe and sound” after they made a treacherous trek out of the bowels of the cave in “buddy teams” escorted by elite divers through narrow crevices and floodwaters that required the use of scuba gear.
The rescue mission in on pause again for about 20 hours to replenish the cave with oxygen pumped in from the outside and to allow divers to rest; the final leg of rescue operations will commence Tuesday.
According to officials, the eight rescued boys have been quarantined at the hospital in case of an infection. Officials are considering whether to allow the parents see the boys through a glass partition.
The mission to save the boys has captured the attention of the world and drawn international search-and-rescue crews from the U.S. military, China, the United Kingdom, Australia, as well as Japan.