Divers rescue trapped villager from Laos cave
Rescuers are still looking for two other missing villagers.
As divers continue their search for two missing villagers trapped inside a flooded Laos cave for 10 days, one of the five people who were initially located but still needed rescue teams to pull them out of the cave was freed on Friday.
Two of the rescue teams posted on their Facebook pages on Friday that one of the trapped victims had been rescued from the cave. The rescued man is okay, and will be transferred to a hospital, according to officials.
His medical examination is still ongoing, officials said.
Six villagers remain in the cave as of Friday. Four of the men have been located but still need to be rescued. Two other villagers in the cave are still missing. Divers and rescue crews are working to pull everyone out to safety and locate those missing.
The evacuation operation paused Friday night and would continue Saturday, officials said. The search for the two missing villagers also ended Friday night and would resume Saturday morning, according to officials.
Laos and Thai rescue teams involved in the operation said that a group of villagers in the Xaisomboun province of central Laos went into the cave on May 19 to look for gold.
Three of the divers who arrived at the scene told ABC News that they hope they are thin enough to navigate the tight cave and will try to get the five found villagers out one by one.
Heavy rain triggered flash flooding and the exit to the cave was blocked, according to officials.
One of the villagers was able to make it out before the entrance was blocked and called for help, officials said.
On Wednesday, five of those villagers were located in the cave and in good health, but were still in the water and had limited room.
Divers from around the world flew out to the site to help with the rescue efforts. Officials said the caves are so tight that they needed thin divers to successfully navigate the space.
The cave is a highly restrictive, fractured network of tunnels. The men are trapped more than 800 feet from the entrance, down a steep 45-degree subterranean slope.
One of the rescue groups involved in the operation posted on Facebook Friday that drills and water pumps were installed to drain the water in order to attempt the rescue.
They said that the water level inside had decreased significantly.
The logistics of the cave are complicated, according to officials.
Rescuers have also been weighing whether they could teach these men, who are already physically depleted, the basics of scuba diving just to get them through the tightest, zero-visibility choke points.
-ABC News' Britt Clennett contributed to this report.
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