Five people found alive after week trapped in flooded Laos cave

BANGKOK — Rescuers in Laos on Wednesday found five villagers alive inside a flooded cave where they were trapped for a week following heavy rain and landslides. Two other villagers who were with them are missing, Lao and Thai rescue teams involved in the operation said. “We’ve found 5 people alive and all safe. There are still 2 people we are searching for,” Laotian rescue group Rescue Volunteer for People 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. The seven were part of a group of villagers from the central province of Xaysomboun who had gone into the cave on Wednesday last week in search of gold deposits and wildlife, but could not get out as the cave’s entrance was blocked. Rescuers were “racing against time” to extract seven people trapped in a flooded cave for a week in Laos, a specialist diver involved in the operation said. “If all the possible safety matters can be met today, we are considering a final search dive into the last chamber to locate the lost 7,” Finnish diver Mikko Paasi said in a social media post. “We are racing against time as today marks the 7th day and the way in is full of challenges,” added Paasi, one of the rescuers who aided the dramatic 2018 retrieval of a youth football team from a flooded cave in Thailand. Paasi said earlier on Wednesday that rescuers needed to “navigate hundreds of metres of constant restrictions, flood waters, collapse hazards and high risk of contaminated air quality” inside the cave, which he called an “abandoned gold mine”. Seven Laotian villagers entered the cave in central Xaysomboun province, about 125 kilometers (78 miles) northeast of the capital Vientiane, on May 20, 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. Authorities and villagers have worked to pump water out, but rescue teams were not able to reach the group, state media said on Monday. By Wednesday morning, the water level in the cave had dried up considerably with rescuers continuing to pump it out, state-run Lao Economic Daily said on Wednesday. Laotian rescuers, local officials and villagers gathered outside the cave on Wednesday morning before rescue operations resumed to perform a traditional spiritual ceremony, a Laotian rescue group said. The cave system, located in a remote area, extends deep underground, with multiple levels and narrow passages. The area is not owned by anybody,” Laotian rescuer Baeng, who requested one name be used for security reasons, told AFP news agency. “Locals usually go there to dig holes and look for food.”