Two kilometers underground: The deadly expedition into one of the world’s deepest caves

Some places may remain forever out of reach. One of them lies in the western Caucasus, in Abkhazia, on territory identified in the article as part of Georgia, where an underground Himalayan world is hidden.

Veryovkina Cave once held the record as the world’s deepest cave, measured at 2,212 meters. Neighboring Krubera-Voronya, also known as Voronya, has since reached a newly confirmed depth of 2,224 meters. The two caves lie in the Gagrinsky Range in the western Greater Caucasus and alternate in the race for the deepest known cave on Earth.

Veryovkina’s story began in 1968, when speleologists from Krasnoyarsk reached only 115 meters and marked the cave S-115. Members of Moscow’s Perovo speleological club rediscovered it in 1982 and progressed to about 440 meters over the following years. For a long time, researchers could find no way farther.

A turning point came in 2015, when explorers found a new passage leading to previously unknown sections. Progress accelerated. They reached 630 meters in June 2016, 1,010 meters several months later and 1,832 meters at the beginning of 2017. In August that year, they passed the two-kilometer mark and reached 2,204 meters by the end of the month, taking the depth record from Krubera. In March 2018, a Russian expedition led by Pavel Demidov and Ilya Turbanov reached the final siphon and measured a total depth of 2,212 meters.

The depth is not the only feature that fascinates speleologists. During the 2017 expeditions, researchers discovered an enormous network of almost horizontal passages more than 2,100 meters underground. They mapped more than six kilometers of new passages during that phase and more than another kilometer the following year.

Such expeditions last for days. Teams carry equipment and supplies through difficult vertical sections and establish underground camps from which they continue exploring. Water creates another danger because it can transform the cave system within minutes. In September 2018, a powerful storm on the surface caused a sudden flood in the lower sections while Demidov’s team was deep inside Veryovkina.