Emergency workers are racing against the clock to rescue seven people trapped in a flooded Laos cave since last week.
According to the Associated Press, the Laotian villagers entered the cave in the Xaisomboun province on May 19 to look for gold deposits, but heavy rain from a flash flood blocked the exit.
One person managed to escape the cave before it was completely flooded, alerting authorities.
“We still do not know whether there are any signs of life or if they are still alive,” Bounkham Luanglat, the president of a Laotian volunteer rescue association, told the AFP.
He added that villagers often visited the cave to mine for gold, despite warnings from authorities over safety concerns.
Per ABC News, rescue teams from Laos and Thailand are involved in the operation. Several members of the rescue team were involved in the Thailand rescue of a football team and their assistant coach in 2018.
Footage shared by local media and the rescue team themselves depict the cave’s narrow opening, alongside muddy and completely flooded passageways.
Divers are now navigating flooded passageways of the cave, while Kengkard Bongkawong — from the Thai rescue group Metta Tham Rescue — said on Facebook that they’d been pumping water from the cave “all day, all night”, per the BBC.
Bongkawong, who assisted in the remarkable 2018 rescue of the football team, also estimated that rescue groups were “less than 20m (65ft) away” from where the group became trapped.
The Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not commented on the incident.
Image source: เก่งกาจ บงกาวงศ์ / Facebook
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