Aussie diver leaves Laos cave rescue

Australian diver Josh Richards leaves Laos cave rescue Wed 3 Jun 2026 at 3:34pm In short: Australian diver Josh Richards has left Laos, after several days spent trying to rescue miners missing in a cave. Mr Richards says the requirements of the mission have changed, and someone with his skill set is no longer needed. What's next? Efforts to find and retrieve two men believed to still be in the cave are ongoing, with some members of the international dive team staying back. The Australian diver taking part in a cave rescue in Laos has left the country, after several days crawling through muddy passages trying to find two people still missing. Adelaide's Josh Richards arrived in Laos last Friday, after being called into the rescue team on short notice. Five of the seven people in the cave have been freed, either by the rescue team or by leaving the cave on their own. With efforts to locate the final two men now splitting between the cave's main entrance and a vertical shaft above the cave, Mr Richards said he left the team to allow people with different skill sets to replace him. "Not only is there not any diving happening because it's too dangerous to push ahead, but even when they do succeed at what they're trying to achieve, there'll be no diving either," Mr Richards told the ABC from Bangkok, as he travelled back to Australia. "There's absolutely no need for some random international diver to be lurking around when there's no diving to be done." Battling the elements Mr Richards said Thai and Laos cave rescue teams were still trying to push into the main mine entrance, pumping out floodwater to possibly regain access. "We had significant flooding over the past few days," he said. "Last time I checked in with the team, the crawl from the entrance through to chamber 1 is now completely flooded. "They've actually gone backwards in a lot of ways trying to remove the water. "They won't push ahead until all of the water is cleared from the entrance through to chamber 5." A vertical shaft, found in the jungle above the cave, has also been investigated to see if it drops into a chamber where the remaining two people could be located. "I dropped a rock down it, it took about four seconds to hit the ground below so we knew that it was roughly 80 metres deep," Mr Richards said. "[Fellow diver] Robin [Cuestra] then repelled into that hole the following day, and found that there are two tunnels heading downwards, but they're both completely choked with rockfall." Mr Richards said the teams remaining were best placed to continue those two operations. "I can repel … I can ascend back up the rope," he said. "I don't feel comfortable or confident enough to do that when I'm hanging 60m down into an unknown hole in Laos." An exhausting operation Mr Richards said it would take him some time to digest what he had experienced in Laos. "We've all come out here to do the best that we can," he said. "Something that's helped me process this a lot over the past 72 hours is the fact that we got those five out, that those five folks are back on the surface. "While the search continues and folks continue pushing on to find the missing two, at the end of the day there are five people who are alive, and I like to think that my presence and the presence of the other international divers certainly contributed to that." Mr Richards said he would not speculate on the prospects of the two remaining missing people. "This is an active operation where a group of people are doing their best to try and find two missing people," he said. "They've done an incredible job by saving these five so far. "It's very difficult to explain to people who aren't onsite just how fluid this situation is." While he still had hours of travel ahead, Mr Richards said he was keen to get home. "I'm very much looking forward to getting on the flight to head back to Australia," he said. "I hope to be back home some time on Thursday."