Rescuers work to drain flooded Laos cave to free 5 villagers and search for 2 still missing

Rescuers working at a flooded cave in Laos said Friday that they were trying to drain water out to help extricate five villagers who have been trapped for more than a week.

An overnight rainstorm has complicated their efforts, they said. Meanwhile, searching continues for two more people who still haven’t been located. The villagers had reportedly entered the cave to look for valuable minerals.

Rescue experts from Laos and neighboring Thailand have been working together for the past week, making their way through twisting, narrow passages with jagged walls and flooded sections of the cave located in a rugged area in the central province of Xaisomboun, about 75 miles north of the capital, Vientiane.

Those helping out included several divers who took part in the complicated 2018 rescue in northern Thailand of 12 schoolboys and their soccer coach who were trapped for more than two weeks in a cave.

The Lao organization Rescue