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Intimate Knowledge

Race Against Time: Laos Cave Rescue “Like Crawling Through A Drinking Straw”

Intimate Knowledge

iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture

3.5697 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2026

⏱️ 15 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Laos officials believe the 7 villagers trapped in a cave while searching for gold are still alive, as day 7 of rescue operations continue despite torrential rain in the area. This week, members of the same team that rescued the 12 members of a soccer team and their coach back in 2018 arrived to assist in the efforts. Rescuers describe the thousand foot tunnel they are trying to access as less than 2 feet wide in some areas.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

0:06.1

Hey there, folks. It is Tuesday, May 26th, and the world waits for another possible miracle.

0:14.1

A search is underway for seven villagers who've been trapped in a cave and have not been heard from in a week.

0:21.7

And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and T.J. Robs, we first, we think about that

0:26.7

soccer team. This is the immediate thing we all think of. Robs is it's very similar in a lot of

0:32.9

ways to that situation. It certainly is that was back in 2018. And in fact, there is a connection to that

0:38.9

rescue operation because three of those trained expert rescuers have now been brought in to help

0:46.6

with seven louse villagers who are trapped in a flooded cave. So they have experience doing

0:52.9

this type of delicate, dangerous, frankly,

0:56.7

frightening work to try and rescue these seven folks who went in a week ago looking for gold.

1:03.8

Look, this is a very impoverished part of the world. And despite government officials begging people, urging people not to go into these caves, people

1:13.6

still do it because they're trying to feed their families.

1:17.6

And now we've got seven villagers who remain trapped in very narrow tunnels.

1:22.6

And this all happened because of a landslide.

1:24.6

And this seems impossible. Desperate and dangerous is one thing. It seems impossible what they're talking about they're having to do right now. But let's get you caught up. First of all, this was last Wednesday, these villagers, what they're described as. And the local folks say this is what they were doing in there. But seven of them go into this cave, an area. This is in the central part of the country in a province there.

1:45.4

But Rob, this is an area

1:46.6

that you just mentioned

1:48.3

they've been told stay out of there,

1:51.1

but as part of the red,

1:52.3

hearing them describe

1:53.6

this rescue now,

1:56.3

I don't know how anyone would even go in there

...

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