Rescue teams have brought another four men out of a flooded cave in central Laos, raising to five the number of villagers rescued from the group of seven who became trapped while searching for gold. Two others remain missing.
The four were brought out on Saturday, a day after the first survivor was rescued, ending a 10-day ordeal underground for the group.
“Rescue officials were able to bring out four more of the trapped people” at around 3:10 p.m. local time, the Facebook page Thailand Rescue Diver reported.
Rescuers said the water inside the cave had finally dropped low enough for the men to walk and swim out alongside the divers who had reached them.
The operation drew dive teams from multiple countries, but the danger is not over, with two members of the party still unaccounted for deep inside the flooded passages.
Laotian and Thai rescue groups posted images of the men being carried out on stretchers, caked in mud, wearing oxygen masks and wrapped in foil blankets. Video shared online showed some collapsing as they emerged, before being embraced by rescue workers.
The five were found alive on Wednesday, huddled on a rock ledge in a cave chamber about 300 meters (985 feet) from the entrance. Unable to extract them immediately, rescuers passed them water, soft food and blankets to keep them alive.
“The first one is out. Safe and sound!!!” Manat Artmongkron, a technician with the Thai rescue team, wrote on Facebook after the first evacuation on Friday.
Divers described hazardous conditions in the narrow, flooded tunnels where visibility was nearly zero. One stretch of 25 meters was too tight to turn around.
According to local officials, the group entered the cave around May 19 or 20 to look for gold and other minerals, before heavy rain triggered flash floods that blocked their exit. An eighth villager managed to escape and alerted authorities to those left behind.
Rescue teams said they were preparing to press deeper into the cave — about 20 to 25 meters beyond where the survivors were found — to search for the two missing men, though that area remained heavily flooded.
Local officials said residents of the remote, mountainous Xaysomboun province often make a living by foraging and entering such caves to find gold, despite repeated warnings about the risks.
