Rescuers face dangerous mission to extract 5 villagers found alive in flooded Laos cave

Five of the seven villagers trapped deep in a flooded cave in Laos for a week have been found alive. Rescuers said they found the survivors cramped on a rocky ledge on May 27, 2026, one week after they were trapped when floods and landslides hit the cave while they were inside searching for gold. The mission to locate them has involved some of the same expert cave divers who saved a Thai youth football team in 2018. It was not immediately clear how difficult it would be to bring the Laos group back to the surface.