Explorers find world's largest cave in Vietnam

Tien Phong

Explorers have recently discovered a cave that is much larger than the world’s biggest known cave.

Vietnam’s cave, Son Doong, belongs to the Phong Nha-Ke Bang grotto system in central Quang Binh Province.

The biggest section of Son Doong is five kilometers in length, 200 meters high and 150 meters wide, said Howard Limbirt of the British Cave Research Association team searching the area April 10-14.

Meanwhile, the size of Deer Cave, the world’s current largest cave in Malaysia, is just two kilometers long, 100 meters high and 90 meters wide.

The exploration team said they had set foot on just 6.5 kilometers along the cave, as there is a large amount of fast flowing water inside Son Doong.

The team is expected to officially report their discovery to the local goverment on April 23. They will then carry out further exploration of the cave.

The Son Doong is situated below another cave in Phong Nha-Ke Bang, though its entry passage is very difficult to traverse.

It takes explorers six hours of walking through a 10 kilometer long forest path from Truong Son Highway to reach the mouth of Son Doong cave.

The cave had been discovered by a local man named Khanh in 2008, but has only recently been called the world’ largest cave after exploration by the British team.

Phong Nha-Ke Bang grotto system belongs to the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park. It is a limestone region of 2,000 square kilometers in Vietnam and borders another limestone area in Hin Nammo in Laos.

Phong Nha-Ke Bang area has 300 caves and grottos, with a combined length of about 70 kilometers. Only 20 have been surveyed by Vietnamese and British scientists.

Howard Limbirt has been conducting explorations of Vietnamese cave systems since 1997.

The British Cave Research Association promotes the study of caves, speleology, and their exploration.

Source: TuoiTre

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