Four more miners have been freed from a flooded cave in Laos after spending 10 days trapped underground, bringing the total number of survivors to five. Two people are still missing as rescue teams continue to search through the cave's narrow, waterlogged tunnels.
The four men were extracted on Saturday after being found crouched together on a rocky ledge about 300 metres from the cave entrance on Wednesday. Rescuers, who had been unable to evacuate them immediately, supplied the group with water, soft food and foil blankets to keep them warm while they waited. The first member of the party was rescued on Friday, emerging covered in mud and visibly unsteady.
International diving teams, including some who took part in the dramatic rescue of a young Thai football team, are now crawling through muddy passageways in poor visibility to locate the remaining two men. Rescuers have been pumping water from the cave and navigating collapse hazards in a perilous operation.
The men are thought to have entered the cave to search for valuable minerals such as gold ore before heavy rain caused flash flooding, blocking their exit with sand and gravel. Thai rescuer Kengkaj Bongkawong said teams faced challenges including temperature, narrow areas and managing the panic of survivors. Divers were required to pass through a 25-metre-long tunnel with no space to turn around.
Australian cave diver Josh Richards, who joined the rescue on Friday, described the conditions as "essentially diving in coffee" because of the unstable clay and mud walls affecting visibility. His team plans to explore an area 20 to 25 metres beyond where the survivors were found, which is said to be heavily flooded.
