Five men rescued after 10 days trapped in flooded Laos cave
Flash flooding sealed five men inside a cave in central Laos for 10 days, and rescuers had to bring them out one by one as water levels fell.
The first of five men was brought out on Friday, May 29, after flash flooding trapped them in a cave in Xaisomboun province, central Laos. By Saturday, May 30, the remaining four had been freed, ending a 10-day ordeal that began when the group entered the cave on May 19 and heavy rain blocked the exit.
Rescuers said the men had been found alive earlier in the week and were in good spirits when teams reached them. Their evacuation depended on a joint Lao-Thai rescue operation, with specialist cave divers working to drain more water from the cave before extracting the survivors through flooded passages and unstable chambers. Even after the five men were located, two other people were still missing and search teams continued to look for them.
The rescue exposed how quickly weather can turn a cave visit into an emergency in Laos, where heavy rain in the wet season can send water surging through low-lying underground spaces. In this case, the floodwater sealed off the exit and left seven people cut off inside the cave. The operation also showed how much the response depended on cross-border expertise, with Thai rescue teams joining Lao crews to tackle the waterlogged cave conditions that made each step of the evacuation slow and hazardous.
The effort drew immediate comparisons with the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue in northern Thailand, where 12 schoolboys and their coach were trapped for more than two weeks before being brought out safely. That rescue became a global lesson in cave safety, weather risk and the need for specialized teams capable of operating in flooded underground terrain. The Laos operation carried the same warning: without rapid warnings, stronger safety planning and emergency capacity that can handle sudden flooding, a day trip underground can become a race against rising water.
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