BANGKOK — Heavy rains threatened to delay the search Sunday for two people missing in a flooded cave in Laos, after the rescue of five other people who were trapped underground for more than a week.
Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, one of the first international rescuers to arrive at the site, told the Associated Press that rains had filled the cave up to the second chamber, preventing divers from entering until pumps can lower the water level.
Making the situation even more difficult, a drainage pump broke down, said fellow diver Yoshitaka Isaji of Japan.
A hunt for gold
Seven villagers, all men, reportedly entered the cave last week to look for gold and other valuable minerals before being trapped by a flash flood that blocked their way out. One escaped, alerted authorities and was rescued.
Rescue teams from Laos and neighboring Thailand have been working together in the last week at the site in a rugged area in the central province of Xaisomboun, about 75 miles north of the capital, Vientiane. They were joined by divers from countries including Finland, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia, France and Australia.
Several of the rescuers took part in the complicated 2018 cave rescue in northern Thailand that saved 12 schoolboys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave.
The rescued men are being treated at a hospital and are doing well, Malaysian diver Lee Kian Lie, who’s taking part in the operation, told the AP on Sunday.
“We interviewed them about [what] the deeper part of the cave looks like. We will continue to search based on the information we have, and perhaps we will be able to get to the other two,” he said.
According to rescuers, they have navigated more than 650 feet into the cave and discovered five chambers in the system. The five people who were rescued were in the fifth chamber.
A hard-to-reach chamber
Paasi told the AP that the survivors said there’s a narrow crack in the fifth chamber that could be a passage leading to a deeper part of the cave system.
“This was the only place that we haven’t checked in the mine, where the two lost miners could still be,” he said during a video interview.
“Now there’s a theory that, through that small crack, it still continues, and there’s a sixth chamber, which gives us hope now that, if we could penetrate that small restriction, we might be able to reach the sixth chamber and then see what is there.”
Isaji described the difficulties of such an endeavor.
“The area between the fifth and sixth chamber is extremely narrow, and no one has seen its shape yet. Furthermore, it’s a narrow space, and of course, it’s muddy water, so visibility is absolutely zero. I’ve also heard that the shape is such that you have to twist your body to get through.”
He suggested that even if rescuers could get through and find another trapped person, it would be extremely difficult to bring them out. In such a case, he said, a plan would probably involve getting food and water to those trapped and waiting for the passage to be drained.
Isaji also mentioned the possibility that the two missing villagers are not in the cave at all, since they were said to have moved separately from the five others.
The five who were rescued were first found Wednesday. They were identified by their first names as Khamla, Mued, Ee, Ing and Laen.
The trapped men took the initiative when the water level dropped
The first man was safely extracted on Friday, guided through a narrow flooded passage by an expert diver. The remaining four left the cave on Saturday, after the water receded enough for them to walk out, rescuers said.
The divers had been preparing to help with another extraction when the trapped men apparently saw that the water level had dropped and decided to seize the opportunity, Paasi said, adding that he would have done the same had he been in their situation.
He and other people waiting at the cave entrance were taken by surprise, and when they emerged the atmosphere was like a party, he said.
Videos posted online Saturday showed emotional moments as the men emerged one by one from the cave. Some collapsed on the ground at the cave’s entrance and were hugged by a group of workers who cried in joy. Later moments showed them lying on a stretcher, wrapped in foil blankets and fitted with oxygen masks before being transported out of the site.
Saksornchai writes for the Associated Press.
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