Rescuers battling monsoon floodwaters in Laos pulled four more men from a semi-submerged cave on Friday morning, bringing the number freed after 10 days underground to five, Thai rescue officials said.
The latest breakthrough came just hours after one man was brought out of the flooded cavern on Thursday night. Two others are still missing.
Lee Kian Lie, a Malaysian rescue diver at the scene, said the four were extracted after crews pumped water from inside the cave system.
Video filmed by Mr Lee showed emergency teams working beneath a makeshift tent, where four people lay on stretchers wrapped in thermal blankets.
“Important they already out,” Mr Lee said. He declined to speculate about the condition of the two men who remain unaccounted for.
The Thailand Rescue Diver Facebook page said in a post that “rescue officials were able to bring out four more people trapped” at about 3.10pm local time, or 9.10am Irish time this morning.
Rescue efforts had focused on pumping monsoon flood waters out of the cave
“A total of five people have now been rescued, while two remain missing,” it said.
Seven men were trapped in the cavern in a remote mountainous area of central Xaysomboun province from 20 May, when flash floods stranded them as they searched for gold, early state media reports said.
Heavy rains triggered the flooding that cut off their way out, sealing the cave exit and leaving the group stuck inside.
On Wednesday, search teams located five of the men alive, crouched together in a narrow shaft roughly 300 metres from the cave mouth.
Rescuers later guided one exhausted, mud-caked man across uneven ground to safety on Friday.
For days, crews concentrated on pumping out monsoon floodwaters in an effort to lower levels enough for divers to reach the trapped men.
Earlier on Friday, rescuers had sounded optimistic that conditions were improving and the four could be brought out.
Mr Lee, part of a specialist cave-diving unit brought in to assist, said after arriving that prospects were “getting more positive”, citing steady pumping and supplies being sent in.
There was no mention of the two men still missing.
The Lao Saychai Foundation posted a video to its Facebook page of the man rescued the day before, identified only as Meud, who said the two missing men had moved about 500 metres deeper into the cave than he had.
Asked whether he believed they were still alive, he said: “I’m afraid it’s too cold there.”
Earlier footage shot by rescue divers showed the five men—now rescued—mud-streaked and dispirited, saying they were suffering chest pains and hunger.
Outside the cave on Thursday, Thai rescue teams rehearsed extraction methods using stretchers, ropes and cables, according to images posted on social media.
Thai rescuers said an additional group of specialist divers later arrived in Laos, including members from Thailand, France, Indonesia and Australia.
The unfolding rescue has drawn comparisons with the 2018 emergency in northern Thailand, when a youth football team and their coach survived 18 days trapped underground before an international operation brought them out.
Two divers who took part in retrieving the 12 young footballers and their coach are now working alongside Laotian volunteers after locals sought specialist personnel and equipment.
