They were celebrating a second day of stunning triumph after divers guided four more boys on Monday through tight passages and dank flooded caverns to safety.

“Two days, eight Boars,” read a Facebook post by the Thai Navy Seals of the dramatic rescue that began on Sunday, more than two weeks after the members of the Wild Boars soccer team were trapped.

Another five still await rescue, including the team’s 25-year old coach.

The eight rescued boys were recuperating in a hospital from their ordeal huddled together on a tiny patch of higher ground where they had sought refuge after a rainstorm flooded the massive Tham Luan Nang Non cave complex as they were exploring it after soccer practice on June 23.

Officials lavished praise on the Thai and international divers including Australians who, in pairs of two, executed the dangerous rescue mission, guiding the boys, who could barely swim and had no diving experience, through a treacherous four-kilometre-long escape route that twisted and turned through the cavern.

Chiang Rai province’s acting governor, Narongsak Osatanakorn, who is in charge of the rescue, voiced confidence on Monday in the ongoing operation, provided the weather doesn’t take a turn for the worse.

Narongsak said Monday’s rescues involving 18 divers and a support team of 100 had taken nine hours, two fewer than the rescues on Sunday. “We have more expertise than yesterday,” he said.

But bringing out the remaining four boys and their coach could take more than one operation, Narongsak warned.

All preparations, including replacing the oxygen cylinders positioned along the route out in the cave, take at least 20 hours, he said. The safety of the divers, who have meticulously planned the mission, is also paramount.

“If Phra Pirun helps us, we might be able to do it very quickly,” Narongsak said, again invoking the god of rain, who is widely revered in Thailand. “But if Phra Pirun doesn’t help, then it might be a little late.”

But the chances of monsoon rains sending torrents of water into the caves and making the rescue effort too risky is never far from the minds of everyone involved in the operation.

Alluding to that worry, the regional army commander offered his thanks on Monday to the rain god Phra Pirun, imploring him to “keep showing us mercy.

“Give us three more days and the Boars will come out to see the world, every one of them,” Major General Bancha Duriyapan told a news conference punctuated by applause from the dozens of Thai and foreign journalists and others in attendance.

“I beg Phra Pirun because the Meteorological Department said that from Monday on there will be continuous rain,” Bancha said. “If I ask too much, he might not provide it. So I’ve been asking for three days.”

The plight of the boys, aged 11-16, and their coach, has riveted Thailand and much of the world.

Workers have been labouring around the clock to pump water out of the cave, and officials said Monday that despite heavy downpours overnight, water levels inside the cave did not rise. More worrying, however, oxygen levels in the chamber where the boys sought refuge were falling.

– AP