Seven people have been trapped in a flooded cave in Laos for nearly a week after rain and landslides blocked the entrance and cut off their escape. Rescuers are still pumping water out of the cave, while a survivor who got out first alerted authorities that others were still inside.
The seven were part of a group of villagers from the central province of Xaysomboun who entered the cave on Wednesday in search of gold and wildlife. Since then, the water has kept rising and has stopped rescuers from pushing deeper into the system, which runs far underground and includes some chambers about 50cm wide.
Teams cleared some rocks at the front of the cave on Monday and surveyed the sections beyond, but they have not yet found any sign of life. Kengkard Bongkawong said last night that water was still being pumped out “all day, all night,” and described the trapped people as being “less than 20m (65ft) away,” a measure of how close the searchers are to the area they believe the group may be in.
The cave is one that villagers regularly visit in hopes of finding gold deposits, a practice that has now turned dangerous under a wall of floodwater and debris. The rescue effort is also drawing on help from several experts who worked on Thailand’s 2018 cave rescue, when 12 boys and their football coach were trapped underground in a case that drew intense global attention.
That previous rescue involved more than 10,000 experts and volunteers, but the situation in Laos is narrower, wetter and still unresolved. The rise in water levels has become the central obstacle, and for now it has left rescuers unable to reach the deepest sections where the missing villagers may be waiting.
The operation in remote Xaysomboun is now entering its most difficult phase, with every hour of pumping tied to a search that has yet to produce a sign of life. The question is no longer whether the cave is dangerous, but whether the trapped villagers can be reached before the floodwater makes that impossible.
