World’s deepest underwater cave found in Czech Republic
WARSAW, POLAND — A team of explorers say they’ve found the world’s deepest underwater cave, located at least 1,325 feet down a limestone formation in the eastern Czech Republic.
Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski, who led the team, said Friday that he felt like a “Columbus of the 21th century” to have made the discovery near the Czech town of Hranice.
Starnawski, 48, on Tuesday determined the depth of the flooded limestone Hranicka Propast, or Hranice Abyss, which divers have explored for decades. He scuba dived to a narrow slot in the formation, then sent a remotely operated underwater robot, or ROV, that went to the depth of 1,325 feet, or the length of its cord, but still did not seem to hit the bottom.
In 2015, Starnawski himself passed through the slot and went 869 feet down without reaching the cave’s bottom. After diving that far down, Starnawski had to spend over six hours in a decompression chamber.
Speaking on the phone from his home in Krakow, southern Poland, Starnawski said Tuesday’s discovery makes Hranice Abyss the world’s deepest known underwater cave, beating the previous record-holder, a flooded sinkhole in Italy called Pozzo del Merro, 39 feet.
The Czech Speleological Society said it thinks the cave is even deeper and will yield additional records. When the robot was 1,325 feet deep “it was as deep as its rope could go, but the bottom was still nowhere in sight,” the society said in a statement.