Moscow ? Doctors and rescuers were trying Friday to coax more than two dozen doomsday cult members into leaving their forest hideout near the Volga River, where they were awaiting the end of the world with the coming of spring.

The cult members have threatened to blow themselves up with about 100 gallons of stockpiled gasoline if authorities forced them out of what officials described as a cave or bunker near the village of Nikolskoye, about 400 miles southeast of Moscow, said regional spokesman Yevgeny Guseynov.

“Any forceful action is dangerous,” Guseynov said, but he added that doctors and rescuers were nearby and trying to persuade the cult members to leave.

Pyotr Kuznetsov, a self-declared prophet who established his True Russian Orthodox Church after he split with the official church, has not joined his followers. He was undergoing psychiatric evaluation Friday, a day after he was charged with setting up a religious organization associated with violence, Guseynov said.