Five of the seven people who had been trapped for a week in a flooded cave in Long Chaeng, central Laos, were found alive this Wednesday by rescue teams, who are still searching for two other members of the expedition.
The rescued, all men according to a video posted on Facebook by one of the divers involved in the rescue efforts, were found in a non-flooded area inside the cave, which was flooded after heavy rains fell during the past week. “There are five,” says the rescuer while filming with a camera.
“I have no symptoms of illness, I’m just very hungry,” one of the trapped people responded to the divers’ questions in another video posted by the rescuers. “I have no strength” or “I feel weak” were other responses, while all stated “not feeling sick.”
The teams had been exploring the partially flooded galleries of the cave for several days, located in a mountainous area more than 200 kilometers north of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, until they found the trapped people during a dive that started at 14:07 local time (9:07 Spanish peninsular time).
“This is just a brief relief, as the five survivors are still in the chamber, all healthy and in good spirits, but the extraction is yet to come and it will not be easy,” noted Finnish diver Mikko Paasi on social media, a member of the team that located the trapped men. According to his assessment, they are about 300 meters from the cave exit.
In a previous post, Paasi described the location of the cave as “remote and hostile,” an old gold mine reached after a four-kilometer hike along a trail through the jungle.
“Once inside the mine, you have to overcome hundreds of meters of constant obstacles, flooding, risk of collapses,” the diver pointed out.
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The seven members of the expedition, originally from the province of Xaisomboun (central Laos), entered the cave on May 20 in search of gold deposits, a common activity in this region of the country, but were trapped when the cavity flooded and several landslides blocked the cave entrance, according to the Vientiane Times. Since then, Lao and Thai rescue teams have undertaken a complicated search operation, slowed by difficult access and bad weather conditions.
Images shared on social media by the rescue teams show the cavers advancing through narrow flooded and mud-covered passages. The operation also uses pumps and hoses to try to drain as much water as possible from inside the cave.
Laos authorities have also deployed ambulances, emergency vehicles, medical teams, and healthcare personnel in the area to ensure immediate care once the survivors are evacuated, the public agency Lao News reported.
Two Thai divers who were part of the high-profile operation that saved the 13 members of the Wild Boars youth soccer team in the Tham Luang cave in 2018, a mission that attracted international attention and was documented in a Netflix production, are participating in the rescue efforts.
