Sabah-based Lee Kian Lie, a technical cave diver who joined the international rescue team, told Bernama from the site that rescuers are grappling with narrow passages, zero visibility, and worsening weather conditions.

The tight and hazardous conditions in the cave have made efforts to locate the remaining miners particularly challenging.

“It is not easy to navigate inside the cave because of the restrictions and narrow passages with zero visibility,” he said. “The passage is tight and only one person can enter the cave at a time.”

The trapped miners were part of a seven-member gold mining expedition in a remote village in Xaysomboun, central Laos, an area known for its limestone caves. They were trapped in the cave on May 20, after heavy rain flooded the area and choked their exit passage.

Rescuers located five of the seven miners on Wednesday. One was brought out safely on Friday, while four others emerged from the cave on Saturday. Two remain missing, trapped about 300 metres underground.

Lee, a Tawau native who has been specialising in cave exploration for nearly 13 years, said: “So far, I consider this a successful rescue operation. None of the victims are hurt and none of the rescuers are injured despite being in a dangerous passage.

“And four (miners) managed to come out of the cave by themselves today. We have been working all night long to save them. The past few days, we have been supplying them with energy bars and boiled rice water according to the doctors’ advice,” said Lee.

He said experts are now going over how next to proceed in the search for the missing victims.

Landlocked Laos is prone to natural hazards such as earthquakes, floods, tropical storms, landslides, and drought.