Hungry and weak, the survivors of the cave in Laos remained huddled in the damp darkness for 11 days, clinging to hope as a wall of water blocked their exit.
When they realized that the water was finally starting to recede, they found the strength to attempt a daring escape, completely without help – which appeared at the cave entrance on Saturday (30).
Their courage was born out of fear, one of the survivors told CNN in an exclusive interview.
Through , some flooded and cold enough to require diving suits, others so tight that oxygen was scarce, the men covered 260 meters from the chamber in which they were trapped to the cave entrance, a distance equivalent to the height of a 78-story building.
who had entered the cave in search of gold, was rescued by a multinational team of cave experts using diving equipment a day earlier. The other four were left to wait for safer conditions.
“I was scared because we were there alone,” said Mee Singfamalai, a 23-year-old barber, to CNN from Long Tieng Hospital, where he is recovering.
“We had been there a long time and the water had dried up. It was very cold in there, so we decided to crawl outside,” Mee said.
In some parts of the cave, the water was at least one meter deep.
“Sometimes we had to dive, sometimes we had to crawl. We crawled slowly. The passage was about the size of a person,” he revealed.
Rescuers reached the group of five on Wednesday, a full week after they entered the cave and became trapped when heavy rain fell in the jungle outside during the humid Lao summer.
Exhausted and surviving on water alone, they slept as much as they could and prayed for salvation to come.
“We slept holding each other. Four or five of us,” he said. “It helped a lot. We didn’t have blankets.”
And they clung to the hope of reuniting with their loved ones to distract themselves from hunger.
“I always believed I would survive. I needed to go back to see my sisters and my mother,” Mee said. “When we came out and saw people applauding us, I felt like I had been given a new life. It was exciting. I suddenly felt hope.”
This torturous ordeal marked Mee’s first time entering this cave, located at the foot of a mining project near the village of Long Tieng, hours away from the nearest towns and on muddy roads battered by the rainy season.
In recent years, an informal mining economy has expanded across parts of Laos, particularly in remote limestone regions and watersheds, where formal livelihoods are scarce and enforcement is limited.
Having found gold elsewhere previously, Mee and her friends decided to try their luck in the cave, hoping to make some money.
“We are villagers. We go to the mountains to make a living. We heard there was gold, so we went looking for it. But the cave flooded and we couldn’t get out.”
Mee said he was grateful to “everyone who helped him survive.”
A huge rescue effort was mobilized to save the men, involving divers from around the world, large pumps to drain water from the cave and heavy machinery to open makeshift roads to the remote location.
Asked if he would ever enter the cave again, Mee replied, “Never.”
“You would have to send me to my death if you wanted to force me in,” he added.
None of the village’s residents had previous diving experience, but they found themselves faced with the terrifying reality of leaving a flooded underground labyrinth.
Lam, another survivor who made it out safely, said being freed from the cave was “like being given a second chance at life.”
“Poverty is scary. That’s why we fight so hard to survive and continue,” he said in a social media post.
Upon leaving the cave, the first thing Mee ate was congee, a salty rice porridge typical of Asian cuisine. He is still only able to eat soft foods while recovering in the hospital.
Two other men in the group were injured and had pain and inflammation on their right side, Mee said, adding that their condition had improved with medication.
