5 villagers found alive after being missing in a flooded cave for more than a week
Updated ,first published
Xaisomboun province, Laos: Rescue divers found five villagers alive and in good health after being trapped for more than a week in a flooded cave in Laos; Searches to find the remaining two continued through the night Wednesday.
The men had been missing since at least May 20 after traveling to the cave complex in the mountainous central region of Xaisomboun in search of gold. The men’s families told this outlet that it had started raining earlier that day and that the group had been warned not to go, but “they didn’t listen”.
Late on Wednesday afternoon, news reached desperate relatives and villagers gathered at the assembly area in Phanchai Village that five of the men had been found.
“When I came back here, people were cheering,” said Mun Duang Somdi, the mother of one of the men found. “I am so happy”.
A video released by a Thai rescue group involved in the mission showed the moment divers emerged from the water and discovered the trapped villagers. In the footage, villagers, each wearing headlamps, can be seen sitting on a rock surrounded by flood waters.
“I’m still shaking. Our team did it,” Bounkham Luanglath, of Volunteer People Rescue in Laos, told The Associated Press in a voicemail.
The mission to rescue the Laos Seven has been likened to the cave rescue of 12 boys from the Wild Boars Thailand football team in 2018, in part because of the length of time the men were missing and the expertise required to find them. It featured some of the same dive masters who achieved previous successes, including Finland’s Mikko Paasi and Thailand’s Norrased “Ben” Palasing.
But although five of the men in Laos have been found, they are not yet free. A person in frequent contact with the rescue team said retrieving trapped people could be a more complex operation than in 2018.
Video released from the rescue mission shows incredibly narrow spaces filled with muddy water, while a several-kilometer trek across steep terrain is required to bring equipment, supplies and aid from the staging area.
Although an eighth man emerged from the cave before it was sealed, authorities were not alerted to the incident until several days later. State-controlled Lao media reported this was because villagers were concerned that gold panning and wildlife hunting, which are “rarely discussed publicly,” could trigger state punishment.
Only when rescue efforts failed did they pass the information on to an “influencer,” who posted the news online, according to the Laotian Times.
The delay caused confusion as to whether the group’s entry into the cave was on 19 May or 20 May.
Zach Hope is a Southeast Asia correspondent. He is a former reporter for the Brisbane Times.Connect via email.
