Diver who helped save soccer team in Thailand holds out hope miners trapped in Laos cave are still alive

In pitch-black tunnels in a remote mine in central Laos, rescuers are risking their lives to save seven miners who have been trapped for a week.

“We haven’t found them, but the operation is escalating a lot, and we have high hopes that they are still alive,” Mikko Paasi, a Thai-based Finnish diver who was instrumental in the rescue of a youth soccer team that was trapped in a cave in Thailand in 2018, told CBS News. Paasi is now in Laos, helping authorities in the rescue effort.

Officials say the artisanal gold miners became trapped about 200 yards into the mine when early monsoon rains pummeled the south of the country. A muddy pit in dense jungle miles from a road that had been the entrance to the mine has now turned into a hub of operations as Paasi and others work to get the miners out. 

“The collapse risks are high because you’re constantly touching the roof, and it’s hand-dug. There’s no support anywhere,” Paasi explained.

Paasi said the infrastructure being created around the mine entrance includes wifi, electricity, pumps and even a 2.5-mile road hacked out of the jungle by villagers desperate to see their neighbors rescued.

As he and his team worm their way into the mountain, they are surrounded by jagged rock, and oxygen is in short supply. Once they go under the coffee-colored water, the visibility drops to zero, and they are forced to navigate by fingertips.

This rescue is more perilous than the Tham Luang cave in Thailand. It is much smaller, shorter, and claustrophobically tight — about the width of a car tire. It’s too tight to turn around underwater, and the spaces that have air are too small for a diver carrying a scuba tank on their back. They have to drag the tanks behind them and exhale to get through the tighter squeezes.

“If there’s a body, somebody in front of you, you’re stuck. And there’s no way to turn around until you hit the next chamber, which can be 100 meters forward,” Paasi said.

Those perils mean the breakneck rescue is being conducted at a snail’s pace, all while the miner’s face dangers including hypothermia, carbon dioxide poisoning and shortages of food and water. But local villagers say miners typically stay in the tunnels for several days, and likely brought food and water with them.

“Of course, I do hope and believe,” Paasi said when asked if the miners could still be alive.

But another danger remains. Even if the miners are alive, if they are incapacitated, Paasi doubts he or anyone else will be able to drag them out, saying it would be too dangerous.