By Hathai Techakitteranun

Tribune News Service

CHIANG RAI, Thailand — A dozen teenage boys and their coach who had been trapped in a cave in Thailand were found Monday, ending nine days of searching and constant vigils on a happy note.

“The latest report from our SEAL unit indicated that they went further from Pattaya Beach and found all the 13 people safe,” Narongsak Osotthanakorn, Chiang Rai’s governor, said at a news conference.

Pattaya Beach is a sandhill inside the cave where the officials initially believed to group to be stranded.

“We are holding a meeting to determine the plan to send nurses or doctors to take care of them and assess their conditions,” he added.

The update was met with cheers from members of the press, officers and volunteers at Tham Luang Khun Nam Nang Non Cave, 620 miles north of Bangkok near the Thai border with Myanmar, where the local football team has been trapped by floodwaters since June 23.

However, Narongsak said: “This does not mean the end of the mission. The plan is to drain all the flood out of the cave and then bring them out.”

The soccer team, consisting of boys ages 11-16 and their coach, had stopped by the cave, which their families say they were familiar with, after their training session June 23. But they likely underestimated the effect of the rainy season and were trapped by a flash flood.

The discovery of their abandoned bikes, as well as footprints, handprints and belongings in the cave early in the week indicated that they had gone further inside the cave to avoid the flood.

Even as the days dragged on, the team members’ schools, families and friends were praying for them to be found safe by the international teams of rescuers working around the clock at the cave.

Parents of the missing boys had been keeping vigil outside the cave, and had been led in daily prayers by a Buddhist monk.

A group of Thai and Australian divers had gone nearly two miles into the cave before eventually reaching the chamber where the team was found.