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LAST UPDATE | 27 May
FIVE OF SEVEN people trapped in a flooded cave for a week in Laos were found alive today, Laotian and Thai rescuers said.
Seven Laotian villagers entered the cave in central Xaysomboun province, about 125 kilometres northeast of the capital Vientiane, on 20 May, Laotian state media said this week.
They were searching for gold but instead got trapped inside the cave after heavy rain triggered flash flooding, blocking their exit, it added.
“We’ve found 5 people alive and all safe. There are still 2 people we are searching for,” a Laotian volunteer rescue group said in a social media post.
“At 4:30 pm, we found our target. We found five people. We are looking for the other two,” added Thai rescuer Kengkach Bangkawong in a Facebook post.
State media Lao Economic Daily also said five people were found alive.
Specialist rescue diver Mikko Paasi from Finland said earlier Wednesday that rescuers were “racing against time” to extract the seven people from the cave, which he called an “abandoned gold mine”.
Rescuers needed to “navigate hundreds of meters (yards) of constant restrictions, flood waters, collapse hazards and high risk of contaminated air quality” inside the cave, Paasi said in a social media post.
The seven people “should be trapped in the terminal chamber” around 300 metres from the exit, he said.
They had entered the cave “with resources to stay sub-terrain for several days”, Paasi added.
The Finnish diver was one of the rescuers who aided the dramatic 2018 retrieval of a youth football team from a flooded cave in neighbouring Thailand.
The “Wild Boars” team spent nearly three weeks trapped by flash floods in the Tham Luang cave complex in Thailand’s north.
Paasi and two Thai specialists who participated in the 2018 rescue arrived at the Laos cave on Monday.
The cave system, located in a remote area, extends deep underground, with multiple levels and narrow passages.
Authorities and villagers have worked to pump water out, but rescue teams had not been able to reach the group earlier this week, according to state media.
By Wednesday morning, the water level in the cave had dried up considerably, with rescuers continuing to pump it out, the Lao Economic Daily said.
Laotian rescuers, local officials and villagers gathered outside the cave before rescue operations resumed Wednesday to perform a traditional spiritual ceremony, offering chickens and rice alcohol to sacred spirits believed to protect the mountain and rescuers, a rescue group said.
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