“The first victim has been successfully rescued from the cave,” the Thai rescue group said in a Facebook post.
The crowd welcomed the man, who had difficulty walking and had to seek help from two rescue workers. Then he was taken for medical examination.
This is the first case of five people being rescued from the cave since divers found them alive on Wednesday.
The villagers had entered the cave last week in search of valuable minerals, but were trapped inside due to flash floods, blocking their way out. Another villager, who escaped in time, alerted the authorities that seven people remained inside.
A team of experts gathered to help people in a very complex mission.
Rescue teams from Laos and neighboring Thailand, along with Japanese and Malaysian colleagues, rushed to the scene in a rugged area in the central province of Tsaimboun, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the capital Vientiane.
The divers raced against time, facing dark and unfamiliar surroundings, making their way through winding, narrow, flooded passages with jagged walls.
Rescuers found that the men were reportedly in good health but exhausted from dehydration and lack of food.
Four others await rescue
Finnish cave diver Mikko Pasi told ThaiPBS World that the two men are still missing and hopes of finding them are diminishing as rescue teams have already searched about 95% of the tunnel system, but so far no trace of the two has been found.
“We don’t have many places left to search,” he said.
The remaining four will have to be taken out and the operation may take time, as the weather and the condition of the soldiers must be right.
Thakkit Tengtang of the Sai Than Association, one of the Thai rescue organizations at the scene, said the evacuation of the other four people was currently suspended until tomorrow because they were not prepared.
Rescue teams had drained water from the flooded cave passages on Friday, but their work was complicated by morning rain.
While they waited, the stranded people were already provided with water, soft food and foil blankets to keep them warm.
Evacuating people is not easy, as rescuers must assess the high risk of guiding survivors without diving skills through zero-visibility water when the cave is flooded or wait for long periods of time as there is less water in the passage.
Edited by: Shawn Sinico
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