They were trapped looking for gold in a flooded cave. How were they found and will they be rescued?

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 just 60 centimeters – the width of an average refrigerator.

One of the latest challenges is hydrogen sulfide – a foul-smelling gas given off by decomposing bat droppings inside the chamber, that caused some crew members to faint, Kengkad told CNN.

The rescue mission ahead

Rescuers say the best course of action is to drain the cave, so the five can crawl out.

“The route they used to enter has chambers along the way where people can stop and rest. The victims know that when water rises, they have to retreat to those safer points,” Kengkad said.

Along the route, where air is limited, they will need oxygen tanks, as well as specially adapted cave stretchers in case the villagers become too weak, Kengkad said.

“If we can completely pump out the water, we may be able to bring everyone out today,” he told CNN Thursday.

Excavation teams stationed several kilometers from the cave have been working to create an access route in recent days, said Bounkham from the volunteer association, which was appointed by the government to oversee the mission.

While sending water, food and medicine inside to the trapped group, the aim is to position a large generator as close to the entrance as possible on Thursday.

“If we succeed, we’ll be able to pump water out of the cave much faster, which could allow us to cancel the backup plan that would require the victims to dive out,” Bounkham told CNN.

“It would be extremely difficult for them to do so.”

Lessons from the Thai cave rescue

It is difficult to overstate the remoteness of the operation in Laos.

The cave lies in central Xaisomboun province, many hours drive from the nearest cities on muddy roads that have been lashed by the rainy season. Rescuers with all their equipment have had to make a 4-kilometer trek through difficult terrain just to reach the cave’s entrance.

Remarkably, cave teams are communicating via LAN internet cables that they managed to run deep into the cave, giving clear directions to prevent people from crossing paths on the one-way route.

For this, Kengkad said he has gained confidence from his experiences during the 2018 cave rescue in northern Thailand.

Back then, the young soccer team became trapped deep inside the Tham Luang Nang Nona cave system in the northern Thai province of Chiang Rai for 18 days, after a downpour similarly flooded the tunnels.

“I observed the operational structure used during Tham Luang and adapted that same system here,” he said.

Once the five villagers emerge from the cave, their recovery will begin.

Throughout their ordeal, they have eaten, slept and survived entirely within the cave, and will need health and memory assessments once they resurface.

For the families of the two still missing, the wait for news continues.

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CNN’s Ally Barnard, Sandi Sidhu and Jaydn Sham contributed to this report.