Four of the gold miners trapped in a flooded cave in Laos “self-rescued” on Saturday, lead rescue diver Mikko Paasi told CBS News. Their escape from the cave came one day after a fifth miner was pulled from the cave in a risky maneuver.
“We were just getting ready to come in and they’re already coming out,” Paasi told CBS News chief correspondent Matt Gutman. “The guys came out by themselves.”
Paasi said that the four miners had noticed the water level dropping and decided to act. They “saw the opportunity” to crawl out and “took it,” he said. The miners were muddy and shaken, but alive.
Two miners remain missing, and efforts to locate them continue amid inclement weather. All seven miners were in the cave together when they became trapped by floodwaters almost two weeks ago. The rescuers found the five miners in the furthest of the cave’s five known chambers on Wednesday. Rescue divers were able to bring food and supplies to them once they were located, and map the cave to prepare a rescue plan.
After the first miner in the chamber was rescued on Friday, Paasi and other rescuers kept pumps working all night to remove water from the cave system. When the rescue divers suited up to re-enter the cave Saturday morning to assess conditions for attempting to rescue the remaining miners, they came face-to-face with the four men.
“It took me a while to understand that this is really happening, and counting. Like, are they all three, all four here?” Paasi said.
The miners were greeted with cheers, hugs and a party-like atmosphere, Paasi said. He described the moment as “very heartwarming.”
“It’s the reason that we keep on doing this for sure,” Paasi said.
Now, the rescuers will work to find the two miners who remain missing and are feared dead. They may be in a sixth chamber accessible only through a narrow gap in the part of the cave where the other five miners were, CBS News previously reported. Paasi said the chamber is too small for him to enter, but that other divers will attempt to explore it.
Paasi said the rescue team is in agreement about continuing to search for the remaining men. They will continue to pump out water to attempt to drain the entire cave system, he said, with the hope that they will be able to enter that sixth chamber.
“We agreed that ‘OK, now we’re going to go and find the missing two,'” Paasi said. “We can’t stop here. We are already here. We got everybody around here, everything is set.”