'13? Brilliant'
"How many of you?" asks the British voice loudly, a torchlight scanning the gaunt, hungry boys crowded on a muddy bank.
"Thirteen?.... Brilliant" -- a remarkable short exchange captured on video has electrified Thailand and paved the way for an astonishing rescue.
The video, which captures the twelve dishevelled and emaciated boys and their football coach sheltering on a slope in the pitch-black belly of a flooded Thai cave, was posted on the official Facebook page of the Thai Navy SEAL early yesterday.
Hours later it has been viewed 16 million times.
The footage starts with a touching chorus of "thank you" from the boys, as the rescuers wade through the mucky water towards them.
The figures of the 13 loom eerily in and out of the torchlight, framed by the darkened walls of the cave. Some have their red football shirts pulled low over bare knees to keep out the cold -- a sign of their unreadiness for nine days in the Tham Luang cave complex.
They look dazed but those who speak appear lucid, despite the long stretch without food. The conversation continues with murmurs of Thai as the group confers, punctuated by reassurances from the diver.
One boy asks in halting English if they will "go outside".
"No, no, not today... there's two of us, you have to dive... we are coming, it's ok. Many people are coming, many, many people, we are the first... many people come."
The diver raises his fingers to show the group has been underground for ten days, adding "you're very strong".
"Thank you so much," say the boys, unfailingly polite despite the urgency of their situation. They are from the "Wild Boar" football team and the first visual evidence of their survival lit up a country that has followed every permutation of a painstaking rescue that at times looked forlorn with floods rushing through the winding tunnels.
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