The last nine surviving members of a Russian doomsday cult today abandoned the cave they had been living in since October, the regional prosecutor's office has confirmed.
The Interfax news agency quoted regional official Vladimir Provotorov as saying the move was preceded by the removal of two female corpses during the night.
Reports of the two deaths emerged last month. One man who left the cave last month said one member had died from fasting and the other of cancer.
"The cult members themselves say that one of the women died from 'severe Lenten fasting', while the other died of an illness. This will all need to be sorted out," Provotorov said.
The last nine surviving members of a Russian doomsday cult today abandoned the cave they had been living in since October, the regional prosecutor's office said.
Contacted by telephone from Moscow, the Penza regional Prosecutor General's Office confirmed the Interfax report.
Last year 35 members of a devout splinter group of the Russian Orthodox Church holed up in the cave in the Penza region of central Russia to await the end of the world.
Their leader, Pavel Kuznetsov, predicted the apocalypse for April or May this year, but would not join them underground, saying God had different tasks for him. In March, he attempted suicide after 24 members left the cave.
Melting snow and March rainwater began to erode the earth in and around the gully where the sect followers had settled, forcing most of them to leave the hideout.
Russian authorities had kept watch over the dugout since November, turning the nearby village of Nikolskoe into an operations centre and a media circus.
The cult members, who call themselves "true Orthodox believers" shut themselves off from the outside world inside in the well-stocked bunker.