Four more villagers freed from flooded cave in Laos
CNN
By Billy Stockwell, Sophie Tanno, Will Ripley, Rebecca Wright, Angie Puranasamriddhi, Isaac Tellechea, June Jeong, Kara Fox, Catherine Nicholls
Laos (CNN) – Four more men have escaped from a flooded cave in Laos after being trapped there for 10 days, unexpectedly navigating their way through the underground tunnels themselves and surprising rescue divers who were preparing to enter the cave to try and get them out.
This comes after one other villager was rescued from the cave yesterday night local time.
As rescue workers were preparing to enter the cave, the trapped villagers managed to escape on their own this afternoon, according to Bounkham Luanglath of the Lao People’s Volunteer Association.
The men were able to walk and crawl out by themselves because the water level inside the cave had dropped substantially, Luanglath said. Emergency pumping operations were carried out throughout the night.
Australian diver Josh Richards told CNN the success of the rescue operation partly hinged on changing over the pumps and moving them into a better position in order to drain the flooded cave.
“The short version is they changed over the pumps this morning, so some of the pumps that were running were moved into a better position, so they could work more efficiently,” Richards said.
Finnish rescue diver Mikko Paasi said the cave divers had been joking that the trapped men would free themselves of their own accord if the water levels inside the cave dropped far enough — but they didn’t expect it to actually happen.
“We were joking about it, that if the (water) pump starts to work and the water level goes down, these guys will rush out without any hesitation,” he told CNN’s Senior International Correspondent Will Ripley.
The health of those rescued remains unclear after they were trapped for more than a week underground.
Two other people believed to have entered the cave earlier than the other men remain missing. The rescue team said yesterday that they have not had contact with them, but today shared that they are assessing the situation and planning the next steps for their search and rescue.
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