Key points:
- Video shows team in good spirits.
- Team to stay in hospital for 10 days.
- Boys, coach sedated during dangerous rescue.
- Boys lost 2kg while in cave.
The first footage has emerged from the hospital where 12 Thai boys and their coach are being treated, showing them smiling and waving from their beds after an ordeal that has gripped the world.
Several boys were seen wearing surgical masks and lying on their beds. Some sat and made the “peace sign” gesture for the camera.
The Thai Navy Seals also released new footage showing the three-day rescue that astonished the world.
PRD
The last group of the 12-member “Wild Boars” football team and their coach was brought out of the Tham Luang cave, near the border with Myanmar, on Tuesday night, safely ending a dangerous rescue and evoking international relief and joy.
Rescue mission chief Narongsak Osottanakorn told a news conference the boys were just being children when they got lost, and no one was to blame.
“We don’t see the children as at fault or as heroes. They are children being children, it was an accident,” Narongsak said.
The 12 boys and their football coach lost an average of two kilograms during their ordeal but were generally in good condition and showed no signs of stress, a senior health official said earlier.
AAP
After being brought out of the cave, one by one beginning on Sunday, they were taken by helicopter to hospital in the town of Chiang Rai, about 70 km away, to stay in quarantine.
The boys would have to stay in hospital for up to 10 days, hospital director Chaiwetch Thanapaisal told the news conference. They would then need to recuperate at home for 30 days, he said.
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Parents of the first eight boys freed have been able to visit them but had to wear protective suits and stand two metres away as a precaution. Authorities are worried about the possibility of infections picked up in the cave.
Thongchai Lertwilairattanapong, a health department inspector, earlier told reporters one from the last group rescued on Tuesday had a lung infection and they were all given vaccinations for rabies and tetanus.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha asked that the boys be given time to recover.
“The important thing is ... personal space,” Prayuth told reporters. “The best way is not to bother them and let them study.”
The group ventured into the vast cave complex in the northern province of Chiang Rai after football practice on June 23 and were trapped when a rainy season downpour flooded tunnels.
They were lost for nine days before British rescue divers discovered them on July 2, sitting on a ledge in a half-flooded chamber.
Getting them out - which involved teaching boys as young as 11 who were not strong swimmers to dive through narrow, submerged passages - proved a monumental challenge.
A former member of Thailand’s navy SEAL unit died during a mission in the cave on Friday.
'Not heroes'
Narongsak, giving details of the rescue, said falling oxygen levels inside the cave complex had added a sense of urgency.
The commander of the Navy SEAL unit that oversaw the rescue, Rear Admiral Apakorn Yuukongkaew, hailed the international effort.
“We are not heroes. This mission was successful because of cooperation from everyone,” he said. “For SEALs, this is what we were trained for. The navy has a motto: ‘We don’t abandon the people’.
Reuters Image Grab/Facebook/Ekapol Chantawong
Official help came from Britain, the United States, Japan, Laos, Myanmar, China and Australia, a government document showed. There were volunteers from Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Ukraine and Finland.
The rescue has dominated front-page headlines in Thailand and beyond for days.
“Hooyah! Mission accomplished,” read one headline, echoing the rallying cry of the Seal unit.
The hashtag #Hooyah was hugely popular on social media with people showing their support for the hundreds of rescuers, including divers from around the world, who helped to get the boys out.
'So strong'
The fate of the boys has even resonated as far as Russia, where football’s World Cup is reaching its final stages. Players from France and England welcomed news of the rescue and sent their best wishes to the “Wild Boars” on Twitter.
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“This victory goes to the heroes of the day, well done boys, you are so strong,” French midfielder Paul Pogba tweeted after his team beat Belgium 1-0 on Tuesday to reach the final.
Manchester City and England defender Kyle Walker, whose team faces Croatia in the second semi-final later on Wednesday, said he wanted to send shirts to the boys.
“Amazing news that all of the Thai kids are out of the cave safely!” Walker tweeted.
A Google search on Tuesday for the words “Thai cave rescue” revealed 359 million results.
Source: Reuters - SBS
