1 hour ago
3
Five villagers who vanished inside a flooded cave in Laos were found alive Wednesday by elite divers — but now crews are racing against time to rescue them, and find two others who remain missing.
“We’ve found five people alive and all safe. There are still two people we are searching for,” the organization Rescue Volunteer for People said online.
The five villagers were found in an underground cavern in the province of Xaisomboun — about 50 miles north of the capital Vientiane, CNN reported.
But, they are still trapped by flood waters and officials are working up an extraction plan.
A team of 15 divers, who helped rescue a group of Thai youth soccer players from a cave in June 2018, were deployed as part of the daring operation – but they had to battle narrow tunnels and collapse hazards.
The villages went into 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.
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.
Passageways were so tight so rescuers could only go through in a single file.
English (US)