By Laura Sharman, Kocha Olarn, June Jeong, Angie Puranasamriddhi, CNN

Hope has returned for the five trapped men deep inside a flooded Laos cave. For more than a week, they huddled together above the murky waters in the pitch black, more than 260 meters from the cave’s entrance, wondering if anyone would ever find them.

On Wednesday, after days of hunger, salvation finally came as rescuers emerged from the darkness, illuminating the narrow rocky cavern with their headlamps.

“There are people here to help now,” said Norased Palasing, a Thai specialist cave diver and one of the multi-national rescue team involved in what has become a heart-stopping race against time.

“The important thing is that you’re alive. It’s okay, it’s okay, you’ve done really well. Don’t cry.”

One of the trapped men, who gave his name as Ing, said into the rescuers’ camera: “Don’t worry, Mom. The rescue team has reached us now. We’re safe. I miss Mom and Dad so much. We’ll probably get out tomorrow or the day after.”

Celebrations extended above ground, where desperate loved ones and the rescuers rejoiced at their survival following a perilous search.

Finnish diver Mikko Paasi, who is part of the operation, toasted the team’s “amazing work” in a post on Instagram.

But he cautioned that a high-stakes extraction lies ahead, “and it ain’t going to be easy.”

Lao officials say the five ventured into the cave last Wednesday, drawn by the promise of gold deposits, a speculative pursuit that has surged in recent years, according to research by US think tank the Stimson Center.

A torrential downpour caused flash flooding inside the cave system and sealed the men’s exit. Two others are thought to have entered the cave earlier, unconnected to the five, and are still missing.

Above ground, a Laos-led rescue operation quickly took shape. After news of the men’s disappearance spread, an A-Team of internationally renowned cave divers coalesced in the landlocked Southeast Asian country, brought together by the Lao People’s Volunteer Association, according to its president, Bounkham Luanglath.

It included Kengkad Bongkawong, from neighboring Thailand, and Paasi from Finland. This was something of a reunion for the daring divers: eight years ago, both played a key role in the dramatic Thai cave rescue that ultimately saved 12 boys and their soccer coach.

Now, in the hot and humid Laotian early summer, their team trekked four kilometers through dense jungle in search of the missing men, in an area about 55 kilometers (35 miles) east of the lush, scenic backpacker hotspot of Vang Vieng.

Tight spaces and noxious gas

One piece of good news for the team is that, according to the state-run Lao News Agency, the men are on an elevated ledge that “benefits from continuous airflow.”

Another is that – apart from severe hunger – the men appear mostly well.

But other than that, myriad challenges await the rescuers as they try to retrieve the men from the cave, whose entrance plunges downwards at a 45-degree gradient.

The length of rope used by rescuers to find the group indicates that they are around 260 meters deep, Kengkad said.

“It’s so narrow that you have to tilt sideways, duck low, and crawl flat on your stomach to get through,” he added.

To get inside, his team had navigated muddy passageways and underground streams, using cables to guide the way – sometimes with only their heads and shoulders above water, at other points removing their equipment to squeeze through the cracks.

Video footage captured the team scaling shafts by rope and crawling through tunnels at times narrowing to jus

By Oscar Holland, CNN

(CNN) — When photographer Greg Brennan spotted Kate Moss in a fur coat at the bottom of a fire exit, cigarette in hand, he knew he’d stumbled across something special. The year was 2007, and what he didn’t realize is that one of the resulting photos — not even his favorite from the night — would become an emblem of the supermodel’s “party era” and the best-known image of his near-four-decade career.

The mid-aughts photo’s enduring appeal is, partly, its mundanity. In that quiet, unguarded moment, Moss was just like any other 30-something having a night out on the town. And yet she is perhaps the only person who could appear that put-together while being ambushed in a stairwell. “It’s kind of a mixture between a ballerina and Janice Joplin,” Brennan said in a video call from his home in London. “It’s very rock ‘n’ roll.”

Moss had developed a reputation for enjoying a night out during the “heroin chic” party girl era of the ’90s, as the press did its best (or, perhaps, worst?) to document her every move.

Not all was as it seemed, though. For one thing, Brennan believes Moss was completely sober when he took the shot. “I read all sorts of nonsense,” added the now-53-year-old photographer, saying that his most famous image is also among the most misunderstood. “I read that she tripped on her dress, that she fell down the stairs, that it was 4 a.m. — none of that was accurate. None.”

Brennan’s new book, “The Big Shot,” intends to set the record straight. It also details the combination of seasoned experience and blind luck that led the British photographer to the back door of a London theater on the model’s 33rd birthday. (Moss’ representatives, meanwhile, did not respond to CNN’s request for her her own version of events.)

In 2007, Moss was at the height of her powers. It was the year Time magazine named her as one of the 100 most influential people and Forbes listed her as the world’s second highest-earning model (behind only Gisele Bündchen). Wedding rumors swirled around her relationship with Babyshambles frontman, Pete Doherty. Against a backdrop of intense tabloid attention, Brennan was assigned to The Dorchester hotel in London to photograph the model’s birthday party, which had become “a kind of annual media event,” he said.

Soon after Brennan’s arrival, word spread among the waiting press that Moss and Doherty were still over a mile away at Donmar Warehouse, a theater in London’s West End. He rushed across town only to find a mob of photographers and curious onlookers clogging the entrance.

Then, a stroke of luck — or bad luck, as it seemed at the time: The batteries of Brennan’s flash unit were nearly flat. Returning to his car a few streets away, he remembered the theater had a fire escape that doubled as a back door. (Here, experience paid off: In the late 1990s, he had captured Nicole Kidman leaving the building via the very same exit.)

The photographer made a quick detour, “just to check,” he recalled. “She was just sitting there on the stairs, smoking. I walked past the door, took one look and knew I had a few seconds, if that, to act.”

Poking his camera through the ajar door, Brennan fired off a series of 10 images. As the shutter clicked, he heard a vehicle pull up outside. It was only then that he realized what was happening: The couple had sent another car to the front entrance as a decoy while they snuck out the back. Moss and Dohert

Por Kocha Olarn, Sophie Tanno, Chris Lau, Helen Regan, CNN

Buzos especializados en cuevas, que se apresuran a rescatar a un grupo de aldeanos atrapados en una cueva inundada en una zona remota de Laos, se muestran cautelosamente optimistas de que pronto podrán comenzar a sacar a los hombres atrapados.

Cinco de los siete aldeanos desaparecidos fueron localizados el miércoles en una cámara subterránea en Xaisomboun, una provincia central de este país del sudeste asiático sin salida al mar, una semana después de que quedaran atrapados cuando las fuertes lluvias provocaron inundaciones repentinas que les bloquearon la salida.

Un grupo de rescate laosiano, Rescue Volunteer for People, informó que cinco de los hombres encontrados estaban “vivos y a salvo”. Los rescatistas creen que dos hombres siguen desaparecidos en algún lugar dentro del complejo de cuevas.

Un video difundido por el grupo de rescate captó el momento en que los buzos llegaron hasta los aldeanos atrapados tras emerger del agua.

En las imágenes se puede ver a los hombres sentados en una cornisa rocosa rodeada por el agua de la inundación y con linternas frontales.

En escenas publicadas en las redes sociales, se puede ver a los equipos de rescate trabajando en la superficie saltando de alegría, abrazándose y llorando al enterarse de que cinco personas habían sido encontradas con vida.

Por ahora, permanecen atrapados en una caverna subterránea, mientras los rescatistas continúan la búsqueda de las dos personas restantes y, simultáneamente, elaboran un plan para extraer a los supervivientes.

La angustiosa misión para rescatar a los hombres atrapados recuerda el dramático rescate de jóvenes futbolistas en la vecina Tailandia en 2018. Algunos de los miembros internacionales de la misión actual son veteranos de aquella operación.

“Cinco personas han sido encontradas con vida y están a salvo. Ya han recibido atención médica básica y alimentos blandos siguiendo las recomendaciones de los médicos”, escribió el buzo de rescate tailandés Kengkad Bongkawong en Facebook a las 23:30 hora local.

“Si se logra facilitar el acceso, los rescatistas creen que los supervivientes tienen la fuerza física suficiente para salir por sí mismos con la ayuda de los equipos”, agregó.

El buzo finlandés Mikko Paasi, que forma parte de la operación de rescate, expresó su alegría por haber localizado a cinco de las personas atrapadas. “La tarea hasta ahora ha sido de todo menos fácil y todos los implicados han hecho un trabajo increíble”, escribió en Instagram.

Sin embargo, añadió que fue “solo un breve alivio”, ya que los supervivientes siguen atrapados en la caverna. “Todos están sanos y de buen ánimo, pero la extracción aún está por delante y no va a ser fácil”, afirmó.

En un video grabado por Paasi se ve a los aldeanos siendo interrogados sobre sus nombres y si padecían alguna enfermedad. Respondieron que no estaban enfermos, pero que se sentían débiles y con mucha hambre.

Es probable que la extracción resulte complicada.

Algunas zonas del túnel, completamente a oscuras y parcialmente inundado, parecen muy estrechas, con un ancho de aproximadamente 58 centímetros. Uno de los rescatistas contó que en un momento dado se vio obligado a quitarse el equipo para poder pasar a duras penas y llegar a la siguiente zona de la cueva.

Según Kengkad, los aldeanos, que al parecer son todos hombres, entraron en la cueva el miércoles pasado en busca de oro, pero las fuertes lluvias provocaron inundaciones repentinas que bloquearon la salida.

La peligrosa operación de rescate se puso en marcha en medio del deterioro de las condiciones y de retrasos imprevistos, entre los que se incluyen el hallazgo por parte de los rescatistas de gas tóxico de sulfuro de hidrógeno y problemas para

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