Source : the age
Vientiane, Laos: One of the seven men trapped for more than a week in a flooded and extremely narrow cave system in Laos has been brought out alive.
The breakthrough late on Friday night local time proves it is possible to save the survivors, and could pave the way for more to be pulled out in coming hours and days.
Video of the survivor being helped out of the cave mouth shows a man sodden and weak, but still able to walk with assistance.
He was one of five known survivors. Two more men, named Bay and Lup, remained unaccounted for.
“We will continue until sunrise,” a member of the search and rescue team told this masthead.
Evacuations of the other four were later suspended until Saturday because they were not ready, said Chakkit Taengtang from Sai Than Association, one of the Thai rescue organisations at the scene.
The successful extraction comes after additional expert divers were brought in from overseas, including Australia’s Josh Richards. The additions have been flown in to the remote site by helicopter, avoiding the diabolical mountain roads.
The five survivors were discovered by divers on Wednesday afternoon to cheers of jubilation from their families waiting at nearby Phanchai Village.
But getting them out of the labyrinth was another matter.
Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, a central figure in the search and rescue effort, is also a veteran of the famous 2018 Thai cave rescue that saved 12 boys and their football coach.
Paasi told this masthead that saving the Lao men’s lives was even more complex than in Thailand because of the extreme and unrelenting claustrophobia.
“If it rains, you’re going to drown there,” he said a day before the successful extraction.
It is still unclear if the freed man had to dive for long distances to get out, or whether a new generator brought in Thursday helped pumped out enough water to make the process safer.
Rescue teams had pumped water out of the flooded cave’s passages on Friday, but a morning rainstorm complicated their work.
The men – seven fossickers from three small villages in Xaisomboun province – had been sealed inside the cave since rain flooded the chambers and cut passageways on May 20 and 21.
