Rescue workers have cleaned up and reinforced the entrance to the shelter following its collapse, clearing the way for the sect members should they wish to end their underground wait for the Apocalypse. A group of rescue workers is also on duty day and night near the shelter in order to provide assistance in the case of an emergency.

Fourteen members of a doomsday cult who had been holed up in a cave in Russia for the last few months are reported to have come out. [video]

A Russian priest who specialises in the Apocalypse has been trying to coax members of a Doomsday cult to come out of a cave where they have spent five months waiting for the world to end.

A Russian doomsday cult sheltering in a bunker say credit cards and food packaging bar codes are satanic, the official negotiating the release of children from the group said.

A third of the dugout is thought to have already caved in. The roots of trees above the enclosure are believed to be keeping the roof from collapsing altogether. [video]

The area of the cave is cordoned off by police. The lives of cultists remaining underground are not in danger, Melnichenko said. After several cave-ins they moved to the part of the cave where trees’ roots reinforce the soil overhead.

Officials feared that melting snow could eventually lead to the collapse of the cave, but there was no immediate threat to those who remained behind.

The sect announced on Wednesday that they would come to the surface in late April or early May.

It is not clear how this promise ties in with the group’s belief concerning May and the destruction of the planet.

The sect members, including four children, entered the cave in November to await the end of the world.

The Kommersant newspaper quoted a policeman as saying the shots were fired after he had tried to help cave dwellers who said melt water had dislodged earth in the caves and they were afraid of being buried alive.

“We are ready to do anything that is required to help these people, but we are not going to provoke them into any kind of life-threatening action,” the source said.

Pyotr Kuznetsov was earlier charged with “the creation of an organization infringing upon citizens’ rights.”

Around thirty of his followers have barricated themselves in an underground bunker where they are awaiting the end of the world (scheduled for this May, according to them).

Emergency service workers in central Russia have carried out an operation to prevent thaw waters reaching a cave where 35 members of a doomsday sect have been holed up for almost five months.

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