Updated ,first published
Xaisomboun Province, Laos: Rescuers have found five villagers stuck for more than a week in a flooded cave in Laos alive and well, with efforts continuing tonight to find the remaining two.
The men had been missing since at least May 20 after they went to a cave area in the central mountainous region of Xaisomboun to search for gold ore. The families of the men told this queen that it had started raining earlier that day, and the group had been warned not to go “but they did not listen”.
On Wednesday afternoon, news reached desperate relatives and villagers gathered at the playground in Phanchai Village that five of the men had been found.
“I came back here and people were cheering,” said Mun Duang Somdi, the mother of one of the men who had been found. “I was very happy”.
A video posted by the Thai rescue group involved in the mission appeared to show the moment the divers emerged from the water and discovered the trapped villagers. In the picture, the smiling villagers were sitting on a rock surrounded by flood water.
“I’m still shaking. Our team did it,” Bounkham Luanglath of Laos’ Rescue Volunteer for People told the Associated Press in an audio message.
The mission to save the Laos Seven has been compared to 2018 cave rescue of 12 children from the Thai Boars Wild soccer teamfor some reason it is because of the long time that these men have lacked and the expertise needed to find them. It has involved some veteran divers from previous careers, including Mikko Paasi of Finland and Norrased “Ben” Palasing of Thailand.
But although five men in Laos have been found, they are still not free. A man in regular contact with the rescue team said it could be a more difficult operation to remove the trapped people than it was in 2018.
A video posted from the rescue mission shows impossibly narrow spaces filled with muddy water, with several kilometers to climb steep terrain to retrieve gear, equipment and support from the platform.
Despite the eighth man getting out of the cave before it was closed, the authorities were not informed of the incident until several days later. State-controlled Lao media reported this was because villagers were worried the issues of gold mining and poaching, which were “rarely discussed in public”, could lead to punishment from the government.
It was only when their rescue efforts failed, according to the Laotian Times, that they passed the information on to an “influencer”, who then published the information online.
The delay has led to confusion over whether it was May 19 or 20 that the group entered the cave.
Zach’s hopes is a Southeast Asian writer. He is a former journalist at the Brisbane Times.Connect through email address.
