Four more miners who were trapped in a flooded cave in Laos for 10 days have been freed by divers, but two people are still missing as rescuers continue to crawl through narrow, deluged tunnels and sharp rocks to find them.
The first of the party of seven men was rescued on Friday in a perilous rescue mission which has required teams to drain water from the cave and navigate collapse hazards.
The four men who were extracted on Saturday were found crouched and huddled together on a rocky ledge inside a chamber about 300 metres (980ft) from the cave entrance on Wednesday, but rescuers were unable to immediately evacuate them.
The search for the remaining two missing people is continuing, with international diving teams – including some who worked on the dramatic rescue of a young Thai football team – crawling and twisting through muddy water in narrow passageways and poor visibility in an attempt to locate them.
It is thought the men entered the cave last week to look for valuable minerals such as gold ore before being trapped by flash flooding caused by heavy rain, which carried in sand and gravel, blocking a crucial exit.
Rescuers supplied the party of five they found on Wednesday with water, soft food and foil blankets to keep them warm while they remained inside the cave.
The first man to be rescued was captured on camera emerging from the cave on Friday, covered in mud and walking unsteadily. As rescuers cheered and helped him to move away from the cave entrance, he cried out in pain and one rescuer could be heard warning others to be careful because his hands were injured.
“The first one is out. Safe and sound!!!” wrote Manat Artmongkron, a rescue technician for Saithan Saphanboon Foundation, a Thai rescue group, in a jubilant Facebook post.
On Saturday, a second man was filmed slowly climbing out of a narrow entrance to the cave. He stood shakily and smiled as his rescuers wrapped him in a foil blanket.
Lao and Thai rescue groups posted photos on social media of the men lying on stretchers, wearing oxygen masks and being wrapped in foil blankets after the successful rescue operation.
Thai rescuer Kengkaj Bongkawong, of the Metta Tham Rescue Kalasin, said rescuers faced “issues with the temperature, narrow areas, control of movement, and managing the panic of the survivor” while they were diving.
He said teams were required to dive through a 25 metre-long narrow tunnel: “Diving in the narrow passage that has no space to make a U-turn, this is really dangerous so we need to evaluate the safety measures, principles, routes and expertise in the cave area.”
Josh Richards, an Australian cave diver who joined the team on Friday, said rescuers were trying to pump out as much water as possible because of the cave’s “particularly unstable” clay and mud walls. This affects the consistency and visibility of the water, he said: “You’re essentially diving in coffee. You’re not going to be seeing anything through it.”
Bongkawong said his team were planning to explore an area deeper inside the cave, about 20 to 25 meters beyond where the survivors were found. However, he warned that the section was heavily flooded.
