Thailand Cave Rescue LIVE: Final Phase of Operation Underway to Extract Last 4 Boys and Coach

A board showing "Welcome home, boys", is seen after rescue effort has begun for the 12 schoolboys and their soccer coach trapped in Tham Luang cave, in Chiang Rai, Thailand on July 9.

“If everything goes right, we will see four kids and a doctor and Seals that have stayed with the kids will all come out,” he said. “Four plus one coach, so it’s five.” said Narongsak Osatanakorn, the head of the rescue mission. Daniel Sutton, a journalist with Network Ten Australia tweeted from the press conference confirming the development. 

BREAKING: “We expect that everybody will be out today, the children and coach and everybody will be out today”, says Mission Commander #ThamLuangCave #TenNews pic.twitter.com/xzpkzNXxZO

— Daniel Sutton (@danielsutton10) July 10, 2018

An Emotional Reunion | Health officials say the first four boys rescued have now met their parents - through a glass window - and will soon get to speak to them. The second group of four are expected to also reunite with their parents soon, The Guardian reported.

Last week, Musk said he was sending teams to Thailand from his private space exploration firm, SpaceX, and engineering firm, Boring Co. which is developing tunneling systems for transport projects.

Earlier in the day, Elon Musk arrived in Thailand to deliver the metallic-pod to the rescue team. The SpaceX CEO had tweeted photos from the Tham Luang caves. 

Just returned from Cave 3. Mini-sub is ready if needed. It is made of rocket parts & named Wild Boar after kids’ soccer team. Leaving here in case it may be useful in the future. Thailand is so beautiful. pic.twitter.com/EHNh8ydaTT

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 9, 2018

The rescue chief has politely dismissed the much publicised attempts by tech entrepreneur, Elon Musk, to help the mission, The Guardian reported. Over the course of the rescue mission, Musk had designed a ‘kid-like’ submarine small submarine, to help in the evacuation of the stranded Thai boys. “Although his technology is good and sophisticated it’s not practical for this mission,” Narongsak Osatanakorn, the head of the joint command centre coordinating the operation, was quoted as saying in the Guardian.

Spirits Up |  The emergence of the second batch of four on Monday evening was greeted with a simple "Hooyah" by the Thai SEAL team on their Facebook page, an exclamation that lit up Thai social media.

The first eight boys to be rescued from a Thai cave are in good mental and physical health, an official said Tuesday, in the clearest update on their condition so far. "All eight are in good health, no fever," Jesada Chokedamrongsuk, permanent secretary of the public health ministry, told reporters at Chiang Rai hospital. "Everyone is in a good mental state," he said. ​

A doctor and three Thai Navy SEALs, who have stayed with the group since shortly after they were discovered huddled on a muddy ledge deep inside the Tham Luang cave complex, will also come out, Narongsak added.

Final Leg of the Mission Underway: Rescuers will guide the remaining five members of a youth football squad out from inside a flooded Thai cave on Tuesday, the chief of the painstaking operation to free them told reporters. Four boys and their 25-year-old football coach "will be extracted today (Tuesday)", rescue chief Narongsak Osottanakorn said. 

CNN reports that the rescue operation has been suspended for today. The Facebook page of the Thai navy seals also suggests it is sticking to its plan of rescuing four boys per day. It said “Two days, Eight boars” referring to the name of the boys football team Wild Boars.

The Thai navy Seals, the military unit running the rescue operation, have confirmed that eight boys have now been rescued. Its Facebook page does not reveal the identity of the rescued boys.

The four boys rescued from the cave in Thailand Monday were wearing full face diving masks while they were carried out of the cave to the make shift hospital nearby, according to an eyewitness who is part of the rescue operations stationed at the entrance of the cave. He added that the boys were also wearing dive suits while being carried on stretchers and that their masks would be removed by medical staff at the make shift hospital.

With eight of the boys trapped in the flooded cave rescued, the focus is shifting to the boys' long-term health and getting them proper medical aid. Health experts will be checking oxygen, malnutrition, dehydration, post-traumatic stress, and other psychological effects. "One of the major concerns is oxygen right now. They've been in an area where oxygen levels are low," Dr. Darria Long Gillespie of the University of Tennessee School of Medicine told CNN.

Eighth boy rescued: An eighth both has left the cave Monday and been sent to a medical facility on site according to an eyewitness who is part of the rescue operations stationed at the entrance of the cave, CNN reports. The total number of boys pulled from the cave Monday is four, following the four that were pulled Sunday. Four boys and their coach remain in the cave.

Sixth and seventh boy rescued: Rescuers have pulled two more boys from the cave complex in northern Thailand, taking the total number of boys rescued so far to seven, CNN reports. Five boys are still trapped inside the cave and their soccer coach remains inside with them. The boys rescued on Monday were being sent to a medical facility on site, an eyewitness who is part of the rescue operations told CNN.

The fifth boy to be rescued from the cave complex in northern Thailand has arrived at a hospital in Chiang Rai. He will join his four teammates already being treated at the newly converted isolation ward at Chiang Rai Prachanukroh hospital. Seven boys and their soccer coach still remain in the cave.

AP reports that Thai authorities are being tight-lipped about who was inside an ambulance seen leaving the site, as they were the night before when four of the 13 people trapped inside the underground complex were rescued. Multiple calls to senior government officials and military personnel leading the operation to rescue the members of the youth soccer team rang unanswered Monday evening. On Sunday, officials waited until several hours after the rescued boys had been transported to hospitals to announce their rescue.

Reports are now emerging of a sixth boy coming out. The Thai prime minister was supposed to visit the site at 6pm but is now hanging around Chiang Rai so as not to disrupt the operation. 

An ambulance took the fifth boy rescued to a waiting helicopter. The helicopter headed south towards Chiang Rai where the other rescued boys are being treated in a hospital.

Thai public television has aired live video of a medivac helicopter landing close to a hospital in the city of Chiang Rai, near the site of the cave where a youth soccer team has been trapped for more than two weeks. Medics appeared to remove one person on a stretcher but hid the person's identity behind multiple white umbrellas. An ambulance was seen leaving the scene immediately afterward early Monday evening. Less than an hour earlier, an ambulance with flashing lights had left the cave complex, hours after the start of the second phase of an operation to rescue the soccer team.As of Monday morning, nine people remained trapped in the cave, including the 12-member team's coach, after four boys were rescued on Sunday, the first day of the rescue operation.

Thai TV stations broadcast footage of an ambulance, believed to be carrying the fifth rescued boy, driving from the cave to a waiting helicopter. The helicopter headed south towards Chiang Rai where the other rescued boys are being treated in a hospital.

TPBS aired a clip of medics transporting someone on a stretcher from the back of an ambulance to the helicopter at 5:10pm today. No. 5? https://t.co/c3V6cWnS9i

— Waan Chomchuen (@waanspeaking) July 9, 2018

Fifth Boy Evacuated: A source inside the rescue operation has confirmed that a fifth boy emerged from the cave not long ago, Guardian reported. An ambulance rushed past and about five minutes later a helicopter flew over the media centre site to cheers from many of the Thai volunteers.

Police officers block a road leading to the Tham Luang cave complex, where members of a soccer team trapped are in a flooded cave, in the northern province of Chiang Rai, Thailand. Officials had reportedly complained about yesterday’s media coverage of the rescue mission, saying a drone was flown above the operation site. (Image:Reuters)

“The factors are as good as yesterday ... The rescue team is the same team with a few replacements,” Narongsak Osatanakorn, the head of the joint command centre coordinating the operation was quoted as saying in The Guardian.

“The factors are as good as yesterday ... The rescue team is the same team with a few replacements,” Narongsak Osatanakorn, the head of the joint command centre coordinating the operation was quoted as saying in The Guardian.

Rescue Mission Resumes | An operation to rescue a group of Thai boys and their soccer coach trapped in a flooded cave resumed on Monday, said several officials with knowledge of the operation at the Tham Luang cave in the northern Thai province of Chiang Rai. Nine members of the "Wild Boars" team are still inside the Tham Luang cave after foreign and Thai divers guided four boys out safely late on Sunday.

Somboon Sompiangjai, 38, the father of one of the trapped boys, said parents were told by rescuers ahead of Sunday's operation the "strongest children" would be brought out first. "We have not been told which child has been brought out ... We can't visit our boys in hospital because they need to be monitored for 48 hours," Somboon told Reuters."I'm hoping for good news today," he said.

Jacob Goldberg, a reporter with the Guardian has said that a helicopter landed close to the Thai caves. 

a helicopter just landed very close to the rescue site. #ThaiCaveRescue pic.twitter.com/sCFN2rpcpt

— Jacob Goldberg (@yayqe) July 9, 2018

Rescued Thai Boys Will See Families Today | The Guardian reported that four boys who were rescued are in good health and should be able to see their families later today. Dr Thongchai Lertwilairattanapong, an inspector for Thailand’s health department, told the Thai daily newspaper, Kom Chad Lek, that the boys should be able to see relatives once the tests have been completed but warned that there must be no physical contact till the results came.