Rescue teams are pausing their efforts to extract four men trapped in a cave complex in Laos while they work to widen a critical underwater passage, Australian cave diver Josh Richards told dpa on Saturday.
"We can't proceed further unless some of the risks are reduced," Richards said.
He said that escorting the men through a 20-metre-long flooded passage connecting the chamber they are trapped in to the rest of the cave system is the most difficult part of the rescue.
Richards himself is to descend into the cave system later on Saturday to try to widen the submerged tunnel.
"Unfortunately, I can't give any estimates on timeline or risk - we're taking things one day at a time and the situation is constantly changing," Richards added. He said, however, that there would be no extraction attempt on Saturday.
Seven men became trapped after heavy rainfall flooded a cave they had entered to dig for gold in the mountainous Longchaeng district of Xaisomboun province on May 19. Other gold prospectors managed to escape and alert the authorities.
Five of the men were found alive on Wednesday, and have since been waiting in a small chamber hundreds of metres from the cave's entrance.
One of them was successfully rescued on Friday, pulled out by Finnish cave diver Mikko Paasi, who is helping to coordinate the mission in Laos.
Richards described the rescue as "a genuine miracle," noting that it was "remarkably lucky." He said the rescuers were all tired, but Paasi in particular was "shattered."
Rescue efforts for those who have been found are complicated, requiring the men to crawl inch by inch through extremely narrow passages lined with sharp rocks and pass through submerged tunnels. None of the miners has any diving experience.
The Lao rescue organization Rescue Volunteer for People said water had again been pumped out of the cave during the night.
Meanwhile, time is running out to find two other men who are still missing. Paasi told Thai PBS World that rescue teams have searched around 95% of the tunnel system but have so far found no trace of the two missing men, describing their chances as "very slim."
Several international specialists have been supporting the emergency services on the ground for days.
The Lao government requested the assistance of Thailand's emergency services in particular, who gained international recognition during the 2018 rescue of a youth football team trapped inside the Tham Luang cave complex, which Paasi was also involved in.
"No one left behind," the Thai MTK rescue unit wrote on Facebook on Saturday, alongside a photo of the rescuers.
