International specialist divers join ‘extremely challenging’ rescue bid for seven trapped in Laos cave

One of seven men rescued from Laos cave after week trapped underground

One of seven men trapped since May 20 in a flooded gold-prospecting cave in Xaysomboun, Laos, was successfully extracted after more than a week underground, with four others still awaiting rescue and two unaccounted for. The operation — involving specialist divers from Thailand, France, Indonesia, and Australia — mirrors the 2018 Thai cave rescue playbook, signaling that international cave rescue response protocols have become a repeatable, deployable capability.