Rescuers rush to rescue two people trapped in a cave in Laos | Stories of the Flood

Rescuers are battling heavy rain, equipment failure in the search for two people trapped in a cave in central Laos and flooding.

Heavy rain has threatened to delay the search for two people missing from a flooded cave in Laos, after five others were rescued. after being locked up in secret for more than a week.

Finland’s Mikko Paasi, one of the world’s first rescuers to reach the site, told the Associated Press that Sunday’s rain had filled the cave to the second floor, preventing people from entering until pumps could reduce the water.

The water pump also broke, making the situation more difficult, said fellow Japanese swimmer Yoshikaka Isaji.

Rescue teams from Laos and neighboring Thailand have been working together for the past week to rescue the trapped people, along with people from countries such as Finland, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia, France and Australia.

Seven people entered the cave in a remote mountain area in the central province of Xaysomboun last week to look for precious minerals such as gold, before they were trapped by floods that blocked their way, according to local reports.

Another person escaped and informed the authorities.

A Lao rescue team said on Sunday it had received “extensive” information about the cave from five men rescued earlier this week. “The hope is that today’s operation will find all those affected,” the group wrote on social media.

The rescued men were being treated at a local hospital and are doing well, Malaysian diver Lee Kian Lie, who is involved in the operation, told AP.

“We asked them about what the deep part of the cave looks like. We will continue to investigate based on what we have, and maybe we will be able to reach the other two,” he said.

Rescuers said they walked more than 200m (650 feet) into the cave and found five chambers in the system. The five people rescued so far were found in the fifth room.

Paasi, a Finnish athlete, told the AP that the survivors said that a narrow crack in the fifth room could be the way to the deepest part of the cave.

“This is the only place we haven’t looked in the mine, where the two lost miners could still be,” he said in a video interview.

The five men who were saved – known by their first names as Khamla, Mued, Ee, Ing and Laen – were first discovered last Wednesday.

The first person was released safely on Friday, guided by a short diving experience by a professional diver. The remaining four left the cave on Saturday, after the water had receded enough for them to get out on their own, rescuers said.

Videos posted online on Saturday showed emotional moments as the men emerged from the cave alone. Some fell down at the entrance of the cave, and were embraced by a group of workers who wept with joy.

Minutes later he showed them lying on stretchers, wrapped in foil blankets and wearing oxygen masks before being released.