All five men found alive inside a flooded cave in central Laos have now been brought out, with Thai-led rescuers pulling four more survivors from the cavern on Saturday afternoon, hours after the first man was extracted late on Friday night. Two of the seven Lao nationals who had entered the cave together to prospect for gold remain unaccounted for.
The first of five men found alive inside the cave was brought out late Friday, Ada Derana reported, citing BBC, after a more than week-long ordeal that has drawn divers from across Asia and Europe to the remote Xaysomboun province.
The group of gold prospectors — not divers, as initial reports had suggested — were cut off inside the cavern on 20 May when flash floods triggered a landslide and sealed the entrance. Five were discovered alive on Wednesday by rescue divers, huddled together about 300 metres (984 ft) from the cave mouth. Two other men from the original group remain missing.
A Thai rescue volunteer posted a photograph on Facebook on Friday showing one survivor being dragged to safety. “The first victim has been successfully rescued out of the cave,” the team wrote. “We will assess the other four and we will hunt for the other two tomorrow,” Thai team member Kengkard Bonggawong said on social media.
Thunderstorms were forecast for Friday evening across roughly 60 percent of the region, sharpening the pressure on rescuers. Earlier plans to pump out floodwater had failed, and operators briefly considered teaching the trapped men to scuba dive out — the same last-resort scenario that played out in the 2018 Tham Luang rescue in northern Thailand.
Specialist divers from Thailand, Indonesia, France and Australia have flown in to assist, joining a Lao volunteer-led operation that has been running in the mountains for ten days. Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, who took part in the 2018 Thai rescue and is on the ground in Laos, told CBS News that “the environment is so hostile that anything can happen.”
Footage shot on Wednesday showed the survivors caked in mud, complaining of chest pains and hunger. Officials have not disclosed exactly how the first man was extracted; the rescue team said it would explain later.
