Diver in Laos miner rescue effort: "We have high hopes that they are still alive"

In pitch-black tunnels successful a distant excavation successful cardinal Laos, rescuers are risking their lives to prevention seven miners who person been trapped for a week.

"We haven't recovered them, but the cognition is escalating a lot, and we person precocious hopes that they are inactive alive," Mikko Paasi, a Thai-based Finnish diver who was instrumental successful the rescue of a younker shot team that was trapped successful a cave successful Thailand successful 2018, told CBS News. Paasi is present successful Laos, helping authorities successful the rescue effort.

Officials accidental the artisanal golden miners became trapped astir 200 yards into the excavation erstwhile aboriginal monsoon rains pummeled the southbound of the country. A muddy pit successful dense jungle miles from a roadworthy that had been the entranceway to the excavation has present turned into a hub of operations arsenic Paasi and others enactment to get the miners out. 

"The illness risks are precocious due to the fact that you're perpetually touching the roof, and it's hand-dug. There's nary enactment anywhere," Paasi explained.

A diver progressive successful the effort to rescue 7 miners trapped successful a cave successful Laos. Mikko Paasi

Paasi said the infrastructure being created astir the excavation entranceway includes wifi, electricity, pumps and adjacent a 2.5-mile roadworthy hacked retired of the jungle by villagers hopeless to spot their neighbors rescued.

As helium and his squad worm their mode into the mountain, they are surrounded by jagged rock, and oxygen is successful abbreviated supply. Once they spell nether the coffee-colored water, the visibility drops to zero, and they are forced to navigate by fingertips.

This rescue is much perilous than the Tham Luang cave successful Thailand. It is overmuch smaller, shorter, and claustrophobically choky — astir the width of a car tire. It's excessively choky to crook astir underwater, and the spaces that person aerial are excessively tiny for a diver carrying a scuba vessel connected their back. They person to resistance the tanks down them and exhale to get done the tighter squeezes.

A diver carrying his oxygen vessel done a tiny opening during the effort to rescue 7 miners trapped successful a cave successful Laos. Mikko Paasi

"If there's a body, idiosyncratic successful beforehand of you, you're stuck. And there's nary mode to crook astir until you deed the adjacent chamber, which tin beryllium 100 meters forward," Paasi said.

Those perils mean the breakneck rescue is being conducted astatine a snail's pace, each portion the miner's look dangers including hypothermia, c dioxide poisoning and shortages of nutrient and water. But section villagers accidental miners typically enactment successful the tunnels for respective days, and apt brought nutrient and h2o with them.

"Of course, I bash anticipation and believe," Paasi said erstwhile asked if the miners could inactive beryllium alive.

But different information remains. Even if the miners are alive, if they are incapacitated, Paasi doubts helium oregon anyone other volition beryllium capable to resistance them out, saying it would beryllium excessively dangerous.