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- Five of seven villagers trapped in a flooded Laos cave were found alive.
- Rescuers, including Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, continue searching for two missing.
- The trapped villagers, seeking gold, remain on an elevated ledge with airflow.
BANGKOK — Five of the seven villagers who became trapped in a cave that flooded in Laos were found alive by rescuers Wednesday, in an incident echoing the dramatic 2018 rescue of teenage soccer players in Thailand.
They were located by specialist cave divers and, for now, remain trapped in an underground cavern in the central Laotian province of Xaisomboun, as rescuers continue searching for the two remaining people.
"5 people have been found safe. The search continues for the remaining 2," Thai rescue diver Kengkad Bongkawong wrote on Facebook at 4.30 p.m. local time.
A Laotian rescue group, Rescue Volunteer for People, said that the five found were "alive and all safe."
Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, who is part of the rescue operation, expressed his joy at locating five of the trapped. "The task so far has been far from easy and everybody involved has done amazing work," he wrote on Instagram.
However, he added it was "only a brief relief," as the survivors are still stuck in the cavern for now. "All healthy and in good spirits, but the extraction is still ahead and it ain't going to be easy," he said.
The task for him and another diver would now be to "dive straight back" and bring the villagers more supplies so that they can regain their strength to prepare for the journey out, he said.
Video footage taken by Paasi shows the villagers being asked for their names and whether they were suffering from any illnesses. They responded that they are not ill but felt weak and very hungry.
Bongkawong told CNN on Tuesday that once the trapped people are found, they will be given a physical assessment and provided with liquid and gel food. A plan will then be formed as to how to extract them.
Extraction will likely prove challenging. To reach those trapped, rescuers are understood to have had to navigate a 1,115-foot tunnel, according to the Metta Tham Kalasin (MTK) Command and Control Center, one of the groups coordinating the rescue.
Some areas of the pitch-black and partially flooded tunnel appear very narrow, with a width of roughly 23 inches. One of the rescuers said he was at one point forced to remove his equipment in order to squeeze through and reach the next area of the cave.
Video footage taken using a GoPro shows the rescuers reaching five of the seven trapped, telling them, "don't cry, don't cry!"
The villagers, who are understood to all be male, went into the cave last Wednesday in search of gold, but heavy rain triggered flash flooding which blocked the exit, Bongkawong said.
The dangerous operation to rescue them was launched amid deteriorating conditions. They are believed to be trapped on "an elevated ledge inside the cave that benefits from continuous airflow," state-run Lao News Agency reported Tuesday.
Rescuers earlier told CNN that more than 100 people had joined the operation – including 15 experienced divers and experts who helped in the dramatic 2018 cave rescue of a young soccer team in Thailand.
