German Caver Saved from Riesending-Schachthöhle after 12 Days
The injured German caver Johann Westhauser was recovered from the depths of the Bavarian Riesending-Schachthöhle cave after 12 days. Rescuers extricated him on Thursday shortly before noon. Westhauser stuck in the depth of almost one kilometer during the exploration of the Schachthöhle cave system. Being struck in the head with a loose rock, 52-year-old Westhauser suffered serious head injuries and was not able to get out on his own.
Riesending-Schachthöhle, a vertical cave in the Untersberg massif in the Berchtesgaden Alps on the border between Bavaria and Austria, was discovered in 1995. Its measured depth is 1148 meters and it is about 19,2 kilometers in length. It is currently the deepest and longest known cave in Germany.
Rescue operations right in the cave involved about 70 people who had to first build several camps. The rest of the support team including doctors were waiting at the surface. Two doctors got to the injured caver already during the rescue, which took 6 days since its preparation.
Grotto Mountain located in the Bow River valley, across from Canmore, Alberta, Canada, is a popular hiking spot among locals but what it's more famed for is the Rat's Nest Cave, over 4 kilometers long and one of the most important caves in Alberta. The reason why lies inside the rock beneath - all…
Ambrym, the most voluminous active volcano in Vanuatu in the South Pacific with 48 eruptions since 1774 is a massive, 1900-year-old, 96 square meters caldera and home of two active volcanic cones, Benbow and Marum. The last eruption inside the later cone was in 1953. They have done it before (2010)…
January 2014: New Zealand’s spelunkers have found two interwoven caves in southern part of the island in Mount Arthur area. The deepest cave in New Zealand was discovered. Let´s have a closer look how such discovery was made and how Mother Nature sometimes forms rock into something we all know.