Four more members of a youth soccer team were pulled from a flooded cave in a second round of rescue operations in Thailand on Monday. The 12 boys and their coach were trapped in the cave for two weeks.
Four were rescued over the weekend. On Monday, four more were rushed to a hospital, bringing the total number rescued to eight.
The new stage started around 11 a.m. local time (midnight ET), and operations halted when it became dark in Thailand, a source confirmed to CBS News. One of the rescue officials told the Associated Press that it's not yet clear if the remaining five people with be extracted in one or more operations.
The boys, ages 11-16, and their 25-year-old coach became stranded when they went exploring inside after a practice game. Monsoon flooding blocked off their escape and prevented rescuers from finding them for almost 10 days.
The four who were rescued previously were taken to a hospital in Chiang Rai for evaluation. Two divers were assigned to each child to help them navigate the dangerous, narrow passageways. It could take two to four days complete the mission, officials said.
On Friday, the death of a former Thai navy SEAL underscored the risks. The diver, the first fatality of the rescue effort, was working in a volunteer capacity and died on a mission to place oxygen canisters along the route.
Chiang Rai acting Gov. Narongsak Osottanakorn says mild weather and falling water levels in recent days has created the "perfect" conditions for an underwater evacuation. Those conditions won't last if the rain resumes, he says.
Heavy rain started falling as soon as the first four were removed from the cave. Narongsak said experts told him the new rain could shrink the unflooded space where the boys are sheltering to 108 square feet.
Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda had said early Monday that the same divers who took part in Sunday's rescue would return to extricate the others as they know the cave conditions and what to do. He had said fresh air tanks needed to be laid along the underwater route.
"Today they are really catching a break from the weather"
The weather in Chiang Rai, Thailand, where the boys and their coach are trapped in a cave, is "actually quite dry," said CBS News foreign correspondent Ben Tracy. "Today they are really catching a break from the weather" of the rainy season, Tracy said.
Since it is rainy season, you can expect almost everyday you will get some type of rain. But in the past few days, they have avoided the heavy downpours that can flood the cave. There was some rain on Sunday, which caused some water to go into the cave, but officials were able to pump an almost equal amount of water out.
At some point, there was talk of leaving of the boys in the cave throughout the rainy season, Tracy said. But then oxygen started running low in the cave, and officials also worried the little piece of real estate the boys and their coach have could be lost.
The current rescue operation is not, Tracy said, "the preferred option." But officials decided "the risk of leaving them there was greater."
The rescued boys will be in quarantine for at least 24 hours, Tracy reports. Tracy also noted that the glimpse we've seen of the trapped boys showed they appeared to be in good spirits.
Officials say rescued boys are hungry but in good health
Thai authorities say the boys rescued from the cave are hungry but in good health.
The chief the rescue mission says they are being kept apart from relatives because of infection concerns, Reuters reports. The rescued boys are in quarantine, BBC News reports.
How will the kids' mental health be effected?
Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental pediatrics at Cohen Children's Medical Center in New Hyde Park, New York, said there is a threat of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for the boys and their coach, but he said he is hopeful it won't be an issue for a majority of the kids.
Adesman said that PTSD is an issue for protracted trauma, and he's optimistic the worst is behind the boys trapped in the cave.
"There's a likelihood of resilience, assuming everyone comes out, there's no fatalities, I think the worst is behind them," Adesman said.
Adesman said the parents and mental health professionals will need to be on the lookout for the symptons of PTSD, including nightmares, flashbacks, concentration issues and impulsive or aggressive behavior.
If the boys do show signs of PTSD, Adesman said the best treatment available would be form of psychotherapy called trauma focused behavioral therapy. This would involve a psychologist, and likely other mental health professionals, working with the teens to revisit some of the trauma, talking about it through various stages of therapy and becoming more capable of coping with the emotional trauma of what occurred.
Rescue to resume Monday, Washington Post reporter says
The divers are expected to go back into the cave Monday, said Washington Post reporter Shibani Mahtani, who is in Mae Sai. She said the supplies need to be restocked, mainly the oxygen tanks since the government said they had depleted their oxygen tanks.
The rescuers need to also check on the boys who are still there and make sure they are strong enough to be rescued.
The boys and the coach are coming out through a buddy system, and she said she has heard some "pretty dramatic scenes of the rescue."
For the boys in the region, soccer is "really a way of life."
As for the coach who has been trapped with the boys, Mahtani said she has learned he has a "tragic" story. He was orphaned after a disease spread through his town, killing his parents and his younger brother. He moved to a monastery, but has moved back to the region to care for an ailing grandmother.
"It does seem he has dedicated a lot of himself to the team," Mahtani said.
Mahtani said the community where boys are from is "definitely a small town ... not a rich town." She said a lot of people in the region are refugees, and move back and forth between Thailand and Myanmar.
"It's an extremely close-knit community," she said. "For sure, this is the biggest thing that has happened here, maybe in forever."
19 Australian personnel involved in rescue, foreign minister says
Australia's foreign minister says 19 Australian personnel are involved in the Thailand cave rescue operation including a doctor who's played an essential part in assessing which boys can leave and in what order.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told reporters in Australia that anesthetist and experienced cave diver Richard Harris is working with the Thai medical team inside the cave "to make the decisions about the order in which the boys were to be extracted."
Crews will have to replenish air tanks along the route before rescuing the others.
Thai officials meeting to discuss next phase
Thailand's interior minister says the same divers who took part in Sunday's rescue of four boys trapped in a flooded cave will also conduct the next operation as they know the cave conditions and what to do.
In comments released by the government, Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda said officials were meeting Monday morning about the next stage of the operation and how to extract the remaining nine people from the cave in the country's north.
Anupong said divers need to place more air canisters along the underwater route to where the boys and their coach have been trapped since June 23. He said that process can take several hours. He said the boys rescued Sunday are strong and safe but need to undergo detailed medical checks.
"Everyone is praying" in Thailand for trapped boys
CBS News correspondent Anna Werner reports from northern Thailand that "everyone is praying" from the boys trapped in a cave for more than two weeks.
"I think there is a sort of community spirity of everyone coming together," Werner said.
Werner said that when she told people she is a reporter on the story, "immediately you have their attention, because everyone is so focused on this story."
A rice farmer told The New York Times that she already prepared her soil for the season, but when she returned from volunteering to help the boys, her fields had been flooded with water from the cave. She said she is not concerned about that, because the boys were found alive.
"I am more than willing to have my rice fields flooded as long as the children are safe," she told the Times. "The boys are like my children."
