Moscow, Russia - Three of the last 14 members of a Russian doomsday sect have left their muddy cave, after five months barricaded underground waiting for the apocalypse.
A woman and two children were seen leaving the cave in a windswept ravine some 700 kilometres south-east of Moscow after cult leader Pyotr Kuznetsov tried to convince the last of his followers to come to the surface.
"Now there are only 11 left," deputy Penza Region governor Oleg Melnichenko told journalists at the site.
"All the children are now above ground."
"We hope by the end of the day to convince [the remaining members] to come out," he said.
Thirty-five members of the Orthodox Christian sect, which believes bar codes on shop products are the work of the devil, barricaded themselves in the cave in November to await the apocalypse, which they calculated would come in May.
The sect members have threatened to blow themselves up with gas canisters if anyone tried to force them out.
But seven of the cult followers were forced to come out last week and 14 more emerged on Tuesday because of the collapse of part of the cave due to water seeping through from melting snow.
The collapsing roof was interpreted by some of the sect members as a sign from God, deputy governor Melnichenko said.
"They said that God signalled them by making the cave fall apart," he said.
Rescuers from the emergency situations ministry cleared the collapsed entrance of the cave by hand to avoid sparking a further collapse, local government official Valery Trazanov said.
Teams of rescuers, doctors, psychologists, police and Orthodox priests were on standby near the ravine.