Rescuers race to free seven people trapped in flooded Laos cave

Rescuers are racing against time to free seven people who have been trapped for nearly a week in a flooded cave in Laos.

The seven were part of a group of villagers from the central province of Xaysomboun who had gone into the cave on Wednesday in search of gold and wildlife, but could not get out as rain and landslides blocked the cave's entrance.

Footage shared by the rescue groups show the cave divers crawling into the cave through narrow, muddy passageways that are almost completely flooded.

Several experts involved in the dramatic rescue of a team of teenage footballers trapped deep inside a Thai cave back in 2018 are among those helping with the current rescue effort.

A survivor who had managed to escape alerted the authorities about those still trapped, according to reports.

The cave in question is frequented by villagers looking for gold deposits, Bounkham Luanglath, who leads the Laos' Rescue Volunteer for People, told the Associated Press.

The cave system, which extends deep underground, is also extremely narrow, with some chambers measuring only about 50cm (20in) wide, rescuers say.

Rescuers are working to pump water out of the cave.

They managed to clear out some rocks at the front of the cave on Monday and were able to survey the deeper sections of it, but water levels have continued to rise, preventing them from going further, rescuers say.

Metta Tham Rescue Kalasin

They have not detected any signs of life so far, but Kengkard Bongkawong of the Thai rescue group Metta Tham Rescue believe they are reaching close to the point where they believe the people are trapped, saying he estimated they were "less than 20m (65ft) away".

"All day, all night, water was still being pumped out," Kengkard wrote on Facebook last night.

Kengkard was part of the team that helped bring 12 young Thai boys and their football coach to safety after they were trapped for two weeks inside a flooded cave underneath a mountain in Thailand's Chiang Rai province in 2018.

The extraordinary rescue involved more than 10,000 experts from around the world and drew intense global attention.

Several films and documentaries have been made based on it, including the feature film Thirteen Lives and the documentary The Rescue.