{"id":704521,"date":"2026-05-30T15:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T15:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/704521\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T15:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T15:21:11","slug":"rescuers-shocked-relieved-as-remaining-four-laos-villagers-emerge-safely-from-cave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/704521\/","title":{"rendered":"Rescuers shocked, relieved as remaining four Laos villagers emerge safely from cave"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four villagers in central Laos have emerged safely from a flooded cave, ending a horrific 10-day ordeal for the group of men who entered the mountain in search of gold.<\/p>\n

A fifth member of the group was pulled out by specialist divers in a stunning rescue late on Friday night<\/a>, using dive equipment to help him out of flooded sections of the tunnel.<\/p>\n

The remaining four managed to free themselves on Saturday afternoon, just after 3pm local time, after pumps drained the flooded sections of cave.<\/p>\n

Specialist divers were still planning how to get the men out when they suddenly emerged from the cave mouth.<\/p>\n

Australian joins ‘scary as hell’ mission to rescue Laos villagers<\/a><\/p>\n

A diver describes the “emotional moment” he found the group of men alive, while a South Australian renowned for his ability to navigate tight spaces joins the rescue mission.<\/p>\n

Video posted by Thai rescue worker Chakkit Taengtang shows the miners emerging, one at a time, from the mouth of the cave, some of them collapsing in joy and exhaustion.<\/p>\n

They were taken away for immediate medical attention.<\/p>\n

The villagers had spent about 10 days trapped in the cave, in central Laos’s Xaisomboun province, after heavy rains caused flash flooding and landslides that blocked their exit.<\/p>\n

Laos officials believe two others may still be missing in the cave, although rescue crews say they have explored most of the tunnels and have not found any survivors or bodies.<\/p>\n

The survival of the group of five men astonished divers, who found them on Wednesday after they had been trapped for a week.<\/p>\n

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The rescue effort involved locals as well as volunteers from Thailand, Japan and Malaysia. Specialist cave divers also flew in from Indonesia, France and Australia.<\/p>\n

South Australian cave diver Josh Richards was preparing to go into the cave when the men suddenly emerged.<\/p>\n

“Just as I was gearing up, we had four very muddy miners climb out of the cave on their own,” Mr Richards told the ABC.<\/p>\n

“They’d obviously noticed the water level had dropped far enough and they decided to take the risk.<\/p>\n

“They’ve managed to wiggle their way back out.”<\/p>\n

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Mr Richards said there was a lot of cheering and relief when the men surfaced.<\/p>\n

“The overwhelming sense here is relief,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We know that the four of them are out and that they’re healthy \u2026 I think everyone’s starting to finally take a very well-earned deep breath.<\/p>\n

“For them to have crawled out over the last 350 metres from where they were is a remarkable reflection of both their spirit and their health.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been hearing [from] a lot of people who are very, very happy to see their loved ones.”<\/p>\n

Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, who is based in Thailand and helped rescue a team of junior soccer players from a flooded Thai cave in 2018<\/a>, said it was emotional watching the men emerge.<\/p>\n

“It was a happy ending for the whole ordeal,” he said.<\/p>\n

“To finally see them in the sunlight, that was pretty good.<\/p>\n

“All the village people there, their kids and mothers, brothers and fathers greeting them was an emotional moment, and full of joy.”<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Rescue divers share equipment usage guidelines with the trapped miners. (Norrased Palasing via Reuters)<\/p>\n

Mr Paasi pulled one of the men out on Friday, hooking him up to diving apparatus and helping him navigate the flooded section of the escape route.<\/p>\n

He had previously described the cave as “if claustrophobia had a form”, requiring rescuers to squeeze through an incredibly narrow tunnel for 250 metres.<\/p>\n

“We went two people, I was in the front escorting him out,” he told the ABC.<\/p>\n

“We made sure he had a regulator well tucked and secured in his mouth; he was holding on to me and I was holding his head down between my legs.<\/p>\n

“It wasn’t an easy dive. but it was a very short dive \u2026 we were lucky to get him out.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four villagers in central Laos have emerged safely from a flooded cave, ending a horrific 10-day ordeal for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[149037,342811,43,342813,26579,340166,342812,104701,44,1157,41,39,42,40,69679],"class_list":["post-704521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-cave","tag-chakkit-taengtang","tag-headlines","tag-josh-richards","tag-laos","tag-laos-cave-rescue","tag-mikko-paasi","tag-miners","tag-news","tag-rescue","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trapped"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}