Twelve boys and their football coach found alive in a Thai cave will be supplied with four months’ worth of food and get diving training, the military said, as focus shifted to the tricky task of evacuating the group from the complex underground system.

The boys aged between 11 and 16, were discovered with their 25-year-old coach late on Monday, rake thin but alive, huddled on a ledge deep inside a flooded cave nine days after they became trapped in a pitch black cave hemmed by rising floodwaters.

Much-needed food and medical supplies -- including high-calorie gels and paracetamol -- reached them on Tuesday as rescuers prepared for the possibility that they may be there for some time.