Thai cave rescue ends as 12 boys, coach freed

All twelve boys and their coach on Tuesday were rescued from a flooded cave in northern Thailand's Chiang Rai.

Nineteen divers, armed with oxygen tanks, entered into the Tham Luang cave near the Thai-Myanmar border at 10 a.m. local time on Tuesday, The Straits Times reported.

"Today is 10 July 2018. It will be longer than previous ones. We will celebrate together finally. Hooyah!" The Thai Navy Seals posted on its Facebook wall.

The rescue operation, which commenced on Sunday, was carried out in three phases.

On Sunday, it took 11 hours to bring out four people. A second rescue operation by the same team of divers took only nine hours to bring out the next four on Monday, the report said.

All eight boys were rescued by divers using guide ropes and shared oxygen tanks and a further three boys were rescued this morning.

The boys are being treated in a Chiang Rai hospital in an isolation ward. The rescued boys are said to be in "high spirits."

For those unversed, the footballers were found by the British divers on late Monday night, with footage showing them visibly weak and huddled on a mud mound deep inside the Tham Luang cave.

The party were strolling inside the cave, following which they were trapped for nine days, before being found. Aged between 11 and 16 years, the boys were members of the Wild Boar soccer team.