MOSCOW, March 29, 2008 (AFP) - Members of a Russian doomsday sect who have been barricaded in a cave for five months have started leaving their bolthole because it is starting to collapse, a report said Friday.

'As a result of negotiations, seven women agreed to leave their self-imprisonment. After they left the cave, they were inspected by a doctor and their health is not under any threat,' an investigator in the Penza region prosecutor's office told the RIA Novosti news agency.

Talks are progressing with the 28 people left in the cave, including four children, the official added.

Earlier, a local administration official said that the cave was collapsing due to melting snow, adding that rescuers and police were waiting near the entrance.

The Orthodox sect holed themselves up in the cave outside the village of Nikolskoye in November to await the Apocalypse, which they originally calculated would come in May 2008.

Earlier this week, the sect members said they would emerge on Orthodox Easter Sunday, April 27, according to Oleg Melnichenko, deputy governor of Penza region, located some 500 kilometres (310 miles) southeast of Moscow.

The Penza sect members had previously threatened to blow themselves up with gas canisters if anyone tried to force them out.

Officials said they had plentiful reserves of food and water and were able to cook inside the cave.

Despite the rising influence of the Orthodox church, unofficial sects have rapidly grown in popularity in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The sect's Orthodox latest announcement came after the detained leader of the cult, Pyotr Kuznetsov, who stayed outside when his followers went in the cave, was brought to the ventilation shaft to speak to the sect, Melnichenko added.