First seven members of Russian doomsday sect emerge from cave

Mar 29, 2008, 14:15 GMT

Moscow - The first members of a Russian doomsday sect that was holed up in a cave for five months have left their underground lair and returned home, Russia's Interfax news agency reported Saturday.

The seven women left their underground home in Penza on the river Volga Friday fearing it would collapse on top of them after the spring thaw and floods, the region's deputy governor Oleg Melnichenko told Interfax.

A further 28 people, including four children, were still in the cave.

Rescue workers and two of the women that emerged from the cave were trying to persuade the others, who were at risk of committing suicide, to give up their underground vigil.

Melnichenko said he hoped that all 'the faithful would return to the light of day.'

The members of the so-called True Russian Orthodox Church sect had already said they would leave their cave by Orthodox Easter on April 27.

The sect members had originally planned to stay in their cave until the end of the May to survive what they believed would be the end of the world.

They had threatened to set themselves on fire if the security forces stormed the cave.

Melnichenko said that the authorities had already made preparations for the medical and psychological care of the sect members, who entered the cave at the start of November.

The women who returned home Friday were in good health, the deputy governor said.

The men, women and children of the sect had stocked the cave some 640 kilometres to the south-east of Moscow with all they needed to survive.

Russian security forces are watching the cave around the clock.

Sect leader Pyotr Kuznetsov, 44, who was institutionalized in November, faces charges of manipulating the gullible members of the group.