THAI CAVE MIRACLE

SOCCER TEAM PLANNED TO BE  INSIDE FOR ONLY AN HOUR

Twelve boys and their soccer coach rescued from a flooded cave in Thailand planned to explore the cavern complex for only about an hour before treacherous flood waters rose to trap them for more than two weeks, one of the boys' fathers said.

All 12 of the boys and their 25-year-old coach were brought to safety over the course of a three-day rescue, organised by Thai navy SEALs and an international team of diving and caving experts, that ended on Tuesday.

They had gone into the Tham Luang cave in the northern province of Chiang Rai on June 23, for a quick excursion after soccer practice, when a rainy season downpour flooded the tunnels.

"He told me that as soon as they finished practice they went to play at the cave. They thought they'd only be an hour," Banpot Korncam, father of the 13-year-old captain of the "Wild Boars" team, told media.

"While they were inside the cave it rained, water flowed in and everyone took off," Banpot said.

Two British divers found the boys on July 2, squatting on a muddy mound in a flooded chamber several kiometres inside the complex, nine days after they went for their quick jaunt.

The boys, aged 11 to 16, had to dive for part of their journey out before they were put on green plastic toboggan-like stretchers and carried, at times through steep, rocky tunnels, with ropes strung overhead.

BRITISH DIVER TELLS OF 'MASSIVE RELIEF' 

The British diver who found 12 Thai boys and their coach trapped alive in a flooded cave has described his "massive relief" as he counted them one by one, sparking a rescue bid unprecedented in its daring and complexity.

Richard Stanton, one of a pair of British caving experts who found the boys, gave reporters yesterday a first-hand account of the moment he saw them emerge from behind a rock face onto a muddy ledge kilometres (miles) inside the Tham Luang cave.

"That was a massive, massive relief. Initially we weren't certain they were all alive -- as they were coming down I was counting them until I got to 13," he said after his arrival at London's Heathrow airport.

Grainy footage of the moment Stanton and John Volanthen discovered the dishevelled and emaciated group has become the symbol of a remarkable survival story -- that has already piqued the interest of Hollywood film producers.

But the mission would last a further eight days, with the risk of extracting the weakened group through flooded, tight, twisting passageways intensified by the risk of fresh rains and falling oxygen levels inside the cave.

The mission was "an order of difficulty much higher than anything that's been accomplished anywhere around the world by any other cave diving team," said Stanton.

12 RESCUED BOYS NOW FACE BATTLE WITH FAME

After their traumatic ordeal deep inside a dark and flooded mountain cave, Thailand's 12 rescued boys and their young soccer coach will now have to navigate a fresh challenge: Fame.

The boys, aged 11 to 16, will spend at least a week in hospital and a month at home, health officials said, following a daring rescue from the Tham Luang cave complex in the northern province of Chiang Rai that captivated the world.

"The world is watching," said Kham-oey Promthep, 64, grandmother of 13-year-old Duangpetch Promthep, or Dom, 13, captain of the 'Wild Boars' soccer team.

"He was trapped in a cave and everyone in the country and from around the world had to come and help him. What do we have to give them in return?" Kham-oey told Reuters.

"We have nothing, so he must be a good boy." They already face the pressure of rising expectations.

The boys need to go back to their normal life, to their daily routines, in order to fully appreciate that the threat is over," said Danese, who heads the institute's stress and development laboratory.

His research suggested up to 20 percent of the boys may develop longer-term psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.