Five villagers trapped in a flooded cave in central Laos for more than a week were found alive Wednesday after rescue divers discovered them crouching on a rocky ledge in darkness, while two members of the group remain missing.
The group of seven, who entered the cave in Laos’ Xaisomboun province in search of gold, became stranded after torrential rain triggered flash flooding that blocked the exit with gravel and dirt.
After a week of wedging through the treacherous, mazelike cave network, rescuers found five of the miners huddled together in a small chamber about 984 feet from the cave’s entrance.
Two men wearing working headlamps are seen surrounded by murky floodwaters as rescue divers emerge and locate them, in footage posted by Kengkard Bongkawong, head of the Thai rescue team. Weeping can be heard in the background as the divers approached the group.
Above ground, rescue teams were seen cheering, jumping, hugging each other and crying tears of joy after learning five people had been discovered alive, in footage posted on social media.
“I’m still shaking. Our team made it happen,” Bounkham Luanglath, a member of the Lao rescue team, said in a voice message to The Associated Press.
The search continues for the two villagers still missing.
Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, who is part of the rescue operation, expressed his elation at the discovery of five of the trapped group. “What a feeling!!!!” wrote Paasi, who also played a role in the 2018 rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach from a Thai cave, where they were trapped for 18 days following a flood.
More than 100 people have joined the ongoing rescue operation, according to CNN, including 15 experienced divers and experts who also worked on the 2018 rescue of the soccer team.
“The task so far has been far from easy and everybody involved has done amazing work,” Paasi said.
However, finding the group provided only a “brief relief,” he said, as the survivors are still trapped inside the cave. “All healthy and in good spirits, but the extraction is still ahead and it ain’t going to be easy,” he said.
Paasi and another diver will return to the cavern and bring the villagers supplies to help them gain strength for the journey out.
Extracting the villagers will be challenging. Reaching the cave’s entrance requires a steep 2.5-mile hike, while the rugged, narrow opening is barely wide enough for one person to pass through. The treacherous conditions have been further complicated by the flooding, with submerged passages and contaminated air inside the cave.
The cave is part of a vast limestone mountain system in central Laos, where erosion has created extensive underground tunnels and chambers. The porous terrain is especially vulnerable to flash flooding during heavy rain.
Tourists often visit the caves for trekking, while locals sometimes go in search for gold, despite warnings from local authorities not to enter the cave.
In a Tuesday interview with The New York Times — a day before the group was discovered — Paasi said he had never seen such narrow caves in his 30 years of cave diving, adding that only a few chambers were large enough to stand up in.
“But other than that, it’s just sliding or wiggling yourself through,” he said. “It makes it very hard or difficult and dangerous because you can’t turn around.”
Paasi said any rescue mission will require pumping water out of the cave. “We can’t dive them out, it’s too small, too tight, too risky,” he said.