Speaking to Dantri/Dtinews on Wednesday, the vice chairman of Hoang Lien Commune People's Committee, Lo A Seng, said they had found two boys who went missing in Lao Hang Chai Village on June 29.

"The boys, seven-year-old Ly A So and ten-year-old Ly A Pao, of the Hmong ethnic group, went missing after going fishing by a local spring," the official said. "After being informed by their families, we sent a rescue team of over 230 members to search for them in an extended area from the spring to the Su Pan 1 Hydropower Reservoir, but there were no traces. There were heavy rains in the area, and the flood water was rising, and we thought the flooding might have swept away the boys."

At 6 am on July 2, when the guard and some teachers at the nearby Lao Chai Primary School went to open the school's store to get some cooking tools to prepare food for the rescue teams, they heard the calls for help and found the boys stuck on the rooftop. The two, who were scared and tired but were safe, were rushed to a local healthcare centre for a health check-up and have recovered well.

Ly A Pao said they went fishing at the Muong Hoa Spring at noon on June 29 and then went to the school to hunt for birds. It was a summer holiday, and the school gate was locked, but the two climbed the wall and then climbed a steel ladder to the rooftop of the three-storey classroom building. They could not open the exit door from inside the rooftop.

The two tried to call for help, but no one could hear them because the school is in a deserted area surrounded by rice fields.

"We were frightened as it was very dark there," Pao said. "We were hungry and thirsty also. And we found a water tank and managed to climb in to drink water."

Pao's mother, Lo Thi Do, said she could not think of the situation happening to her son but was very happy to have him back.

"I was afraid he was lost in the spring during the flooding," she said. "I'm just too happy now that I can still hold him here."