Urgent Cave Rescue Underway in Laos: Five Villagers Discovered Alive Amid Flood Crisis

In a dramatic turn of events, five villagers who had been missing in a flooded cave in Laos have been discovered alive by expert divers on Wednesday. The rescue teams are now urgently working to extract them, while the search continues for two more individuals who have yet to be located.

“We have successfully found five people alive and safe. Our efforts are ongoing to locate the remaining two,” announced the Rescue Volunteer for People organization in an online statement.

The five survivors were found perched on a rock, encircled by rising floodwaters within an underground cave in Xaisomboun province, situated roughly 50 miles from Vientiane, the capital. This discovery comes a week after they were initially reported missing.

Upon reaching the stranded villagers, the rescuers reassured them with comforting words, saying, “Don’t cry, don’t cry,” as captured in GoPro footage that was shared by CNN.

Despite the relief of locating the group, they remain trapped by the floodwaters, prompting officials to strategize on a safe extraction method.

The operation involves a team of 15 divers, many of whom were part of the renowned 2018 mission to rescue Thai youth soccer players. These divers are now navigating through challenging narrow passages and potential cave-ins to ensure a successful rescue.

Divers cleared around 15 meters of obstacles to reach the trapped group. 

The villagers entered the cave in the Southeast Asian nation to look for gold — but became trapped when heavy rains suddenly flooded the entrance.

The five survivors are “all healthy and in good spirits, but the extraction is still ahead and it ain’t going to be easy,” Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, who helped rescue the soccer players, wrote on social media.

Paasi previously spoke about the “race against time” to rescue the locals, alluding to the challenges crews faced.

Rescuers had to carry out a steep 2.5 mile walk just to reach the cave entrance before making their way inside through muddy passageways and narrow tunnels.

“It is so narrow that you have to tilt sideways, duck low, and crawl flat on your stomach to get through,” Thai diver Kengkad Bongkawong told CNN, describing the cave entrance.

Passageways were so tight that rescuers could only proceed in a single file – with one such tunnel just 23 inches wide.

“Inside the mine, you have to navigate hundreds of meters of constant restrictions, flood waters, collapse hazards and high risk of contaminated air quality,” Paasi said, speaking on the potential dangers crews faced.

Rescuers were making progress over the weekend before being stopped in their tracks thanks to rising floodwaters. 

At one point, they were approximately just 40 meters away from reaching the group, the Telegraph reported, before being forced to backtrack.

There has been no official confirmation on why the villagers went into the cave, although the rescuers involved said that they went in to look for gold deposits.

Laos is not known as a major gold producer, but its mining industry is sizable considering the country’s developing economy.

The mining sector is fueled by foreign direct investment, largely from neighboring Thailand and China.

Copper is a major export, and mining for rare earth elements, needed for most modern technologies, has become more common in Laos recently.

The Lao Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said it has no official information to share with the media.

The Southeast Asian nation is a one-party communist state with no organized opposition, and the government keeps a tight lid on information.

With Post wires