A Navy Seal team, a remote controlled submarine, two heat-seeking drones and a British caver have all been deployed in a race against time to rescue 12 teenage members of a youth football team and their coach, trapped in a flooded cave complex in northern Thailand.

The boys, aged 11 to 16, have been missing since they decided to explore Tham Luang Nang Non caves, a popular tourist attraction in Chiang Rai province near the border with Burma, on Saturday.

The search to find them has been hampered by flood waters rising up to 7m inside the cave’s chambers due to Thailand’s rainy season.

As the team's anxious parents gathered outside the cave, electricians worked through the night to extend a 900m power cable inside the cave to provide light and ventilation for rescue divers. British caver Vern Unsworth, who has been inside the cave many times, also reportedly joined the search along with six Thai civilians with experience of the cave.

The boys’ bicycles, backpacks and football boots still lay where were the boys entered the complex, next to a makeshift campsite where their parents waited, reported the Bangkok Post.