The Most Terrifying Deaths Underground: Cave Tragedies –
His body lay for 9 months at a depth of 1,100 m in the world’s deepest cave. But the most horrific part began when the rescuers realized that the only way to get him to the surface was to dismember him. Abcazia, a region of Georgia. This is the place where all four of the world’s deepest known caves are located.
One of them is the Verofkina cave. A small part of it was first discovered in 1968, but only after long and persistent searches in 2000 did researchers uncover deeper sections. Realizing that before them was the deepest cave on Earth to date, its maximum explored depth is 2,212 m.
Colossal figure, it’s hard even to imagine the scale of this abyss plunging into the very heart of the earth. The cave itself is surrounded by picturesque limestone cliffs. Its entrance is located at an altitude of 2,285 m above sea level, which means that to begin the descent, you first have to undertake a serious ascent. The varina cave is a truly extraordinary place.
It’s called the Everest of the spilology world. That’s how complex and dangerous it is. This cave is definitely not for beginners. Due to the high altitude location of the entrance, it’s always cold inside. The temperature fluctuates from 4 to 7° and the air humidity reaches 100%. The first 400 m of descent are incredibly difficult.
Further down, spilologists encounter very narrow claustrophobia inducing passages. At a depth of about 800 m, small rivers and streams appear, making the cave very damp and in some places completely flooded. In certain sections, you literally have to tiptoe along the edge and pray not to slip into the icy water.
At the very bottom of the cave stretches a huge labyrinth. The cross-section of some passages reaches from 3 to 5 m and others even more than 20. Some tunnels lead to dead ends, others to completely flooded siphons that have yet to be explored. This is a real underground world. There are even groups of divers who descend to the very bottom with scuba gear to study these flooded passages, which in my opinion sounds like pure madness.
As for the dangers, there’s always a real risk of rockfalls and floods. The water level can rise at tremendous speed, and some boulders have lain in their places for thousands of years, and the slightest human interference can cause them to collapse. To give you an idea of the scale, the journey to the bottom of the cave and back takes about 8 days.
Being the deepest in the world, it attracts only the most daring adventurers. One such person was Sergey Kazerv. He was 37 years old. He was married and had two children. Sergey was a Russian mountaineer and lived in the city of Sochi. On the morning of November 1st, 2020, Sergey said goodbye to his family, got in his car, and drove away without saying where he was headed.
His relatives had no idea that he had planned to conquer the gigantic varina cave alone in neighboring abcazia. Sergey was a man who was passionate about many sports. He was in excellent physical shape, ran marathons, and engaged in various athletic disciplines. He often went on solo hikes or mountain ascents, but one of his new passions was spiliology, something he had only done twice in the vicinity of his hometown.
Despite his lack of experience and knowledge, Sergey decided that descending into the Verofkina cave alone was a fun and exciting idea. Spoiler, it was a bad idea. After a long drive to Abcazia, he parked his car in a secluded spot and walked to the cave entrance. There he repacked his things into three transport bags.
Without hesitation, secured a rope and began descending into the almost vertical shaft. In the Verofkina cave, there are six camps equipped at various depths where you can stop to eat and regain strength. The first 400 m of the cave are very treacherous. The passages there are extremely narrow and overcoming them is very difficult.
Sergey’s first stop was the camp at the 380 m mark. There he ate pasta with ketchup and planned his further descent to the camp at a depth of 600 m. In this camp, he lived for a whole week eating spelological products. He cooked pasta with ketchup again and it seems at that moment was simply enjoying life. All of this already sounds insane, but he was descending into the deepest cave known to humanity using only screenshots on his phone and a small printed map.
Despite being a true amateur, he continued his path to the more technically complex sections of the cave. It should be noted that at this depth the cave becomes very humid and cold. Avoiding water is impossible. Constantly pours down on you as you try to descend and that means hypothermia becomes a huge risk.
If you’re poorly equipped, death will overtake you very quickly here. So everything was going well. Sergey reached the 1,100 meter mark, which in itself is an achievement. That’s equivalent to 11 football fields of the most challenging spilological route. Truly a colossal depth. However, with the increasing water flows, Sergey suddenly started having problems.
Something he apparently didn’t expect since he didn’t even bring a wet suit. Descending lower, he constantly found himself under streams of water and icy ones at that. Just imagine this setting. You’re in a very cold place and you’re continuously dowsted with icy water. The cold penetrates to the bones very quickly.
His equipment from clothing to two ascenders without stirrups turned out to be completely unsuitable. Sergey forgot vitally important gear and at that moment he began to worry. He felt his strength leaving him from the exhausting descent. He tried to move further but realized he was tired and worn out. soaked to the skin. He was freezing.
He decided, “No, I won’t continue.” He tried to climb back to the camp where he had spent a week before. But when he started the ascent, he realized that with the equipment he had, he simply couldn’t climb where he had descended. It’s unknown how long Sergey struggled trying to get out. But in the end, he gave up.
He descended to the base of the well from which he had tried to climb. He curled up into a ball and lost consciousness. That’s how he remained, still attached to his rope, alone at a tremendous depth of 1,100 m in the world’s deepest cave. Unfortunately, Sergey couldn’t withstand these conditions and died from hypothermia.
A few days later, when Sergey didn’t return home as he usually did after his solo outings, his wife reported him missing, but he couldn’t be found anywhere. He had vanished from the face of the earth. For 9 months, he was listed as missing without a trace until a sunny day on August 4th, 2021 when a group of spiliologists beginning their descent into the cave noticed a rope hanging from the wall at the entrance, which was a gross violation of local rules.
It seemed someone was already in the cave. Reaching the first camp, they found a bag with equipment and moldy sneakers. Descending deeper, they kept stumbling upon scattered elements of gear. Anxiety grew. It seemed like someone was stuck in the cave. The group descended to 1,100 m, and that’s where they found the man. He lay curled up by the rope.
It was obvious that he had been dead for a very long time. The body had decomposed so much that identifying him was impossible. His equipment was completely inadequate for the complexity of the cave route. At first, it even looked like murder, as if someone had just left the body there, so meager was his gear.
Without stirrups in a cave with long vertical sections that was undoubtedly a serious mistake, leading to complete exhaustion. On the ledge next to him lay his bags and remnants of equipment in which they found two mobile phones and a multi-tool. Reviewing the notes in his bag and photos on the phone, they discovered a detailed plan calculated for about a year on how to reach the bottom of the deepest cave alone. Truly a ridiculous undertaking.
He had no documents with him. Identification became possible thanks to the Liza Alert Squad, a search system for missing people. That same day, they contacted his wife, who identified him from the photos on the phone. Despite the abyss in which the body was located, his wife demanded that it be extracted from the cave.
This was important for the rescuers as well since a decomposing human corpse could cause serious harm to the fragile cave ecosystem. For the body evacuation, the Russian rescuers union was called, although they weren’t sure how to do it. The cave is extremely narrow in some places, and they were almost certain that extracting him on a stretcher was impossible.
So they called his wife again and a horrifying decision was made to dismember Sergey’s body into parts and evacuate it that way. Truly a monstrous task. The lifting operation began on August 4th with collecting donations from the local community to pay for the evacuation. And on August 11th, a team of about 27 professional mountaineers gathered at the cave entrance.
They split into two groups and descended into the cave to pack the body. On August 13th, after two days of very difficult descent and an overnight stay in one of the upper camps, heavy rains on the surface caused flooding. After waiting for some time, the group continued the descent and spent the night in the camp at a depth of 1,000 m. That night, they mentally prepared for the horrific task they had to perform the next day.
On August 14th, the group put on wet suits, preparing for the descent into an even wetter and more complex part of the cave. Descending, they immediately found his body. The rescuers extracted the body, cut it into 10 parts, and packed them into 10 special super strong bags. Then the group spent the next few days pulling these bags out of the cave.
It turned out to be an incredibly difficult and labor intensive task. Just imagine what it’s like to drag a heavy bag with a part of a corpse through very narrow passages. Finally, on August 16th, both groups emerged on the surface with 10 bags containing Sergey’s remains. The entire operation took 4 days. Later, it turned out that Sergey had entered the cave illegally.
He shouldn’t have been there at all. To visit the cave, you need to submit an application and be in a special registry in which he obviously wasn’t. This was also the reason why no one searched for him there. It was also established that the equipment he took with him was absolutely inadequate which became the cause of his death.
Later Sergey was buried by his family. Truly a sad situation as he left behind two children. His family expressed heartfelt gratitude and a deep bow to everyone who participated in this truly gruesome and complex operation. In the end, this is the story of an amateur speliologist who tried to conquer the Everest of the underground world.
And this attempt of course ended in tragedy. All that remains is to pay tribute to the rescuers who performed this heaviest and morally unbearable work of extracting his remains. Rest in peace, Sergey. The next story begins in Thailand, more precisely in Kowak National Park in Suritani Province. Cows is a popular destination for tourists vacationing on Fuket Island.
The park is famous for being covered by the world’s oldest evergreen forest. It’s also known for its wild tigers, exotic birds, and butterflies. Cow sock national park is dotted with high limestone cliffs and waterfalls. And since limestone is easily eroded, this park, of course, hides extensive cave systems full of bats.
Some of them are easily accessible while others are notoriously dangerous. This is a truly beautiful and breathtaking place. And in 2021, the park was visited by 297,000 people. Helen Carol was 21 years old and her boyfriend whom she had been dating for 4 years and was planning to marry John Cullen was 24. They were both from the United Kingdom and had known each other since primary school.
It was childhood love. They fell in love with each other from the very first meeting at school. Helen was extremely caring and adored animals while Jon was a loving guy. craving adventures. Shortly before that, Jon had received an inheritance after his father’s death and was supposed to head the family business.
But at 24, he wanted to see the world before settling down. They thought about using that money as a down payment for a house, but instead decided to spend it on the trip of a lifetime. So, without much hesitation, the couple planned a year-long trip, during which they were to spend several months in Thailand, then head to Australia and Japan.
They were both working at an elephant sanctuary near Fatea on Thailand’s eastern coast when they met a friend who had just returned from a cave tour in the southern province. Their friend said it was an incredibly thrilling experience and that they absolutely had to try it. And they decided to book a tour to the nearby Nam Taloo Cave.
The Nam Taloo Cave system is a wild cave 750 m long. A popular tourist attraction in the national park. It has no rope bridges or lighting. The couple tried to book a tour to the Namtaloo cave with a local official guide, but he warned them that Thailand was currently in the monsoon season and at this time of year, Namtalu is a very treacherous cave.
He ominously cautioned them that under no circumstances should they enter it and that they might not return if they tried. However, the group completely ignored these warnings and decided to find local residents who would take them to the cave for a small fee. In the end, they found a few people willing to do it.
But it’s worth noting that these local guides were just villagers. They had no spelological experience and no real experience in conducting tours. They didn’t even have much of the necessary equipment. They simply knew where the cave was and had a boat to get to the right place. The couple was accompanied by a German boy with his mother, as well as two Swiss girls with their stepmother, local guides, and one boatman.
The group made a 2-hour boat trip to the village from where they then walked for 2 hours through dense, impenetrable, insectinfested jungles to reach the cave entrance. When they arrived there, they noticed that the water in the cave was shallow, about 50 cm, and the group slowly entered inside. Since the cave is located in a tropical forest, it is home to thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of poisonous spiders and insects, not to mention snakes, which Helen was also afraid of.
It was a real cesspool full of insects. First, everything went very well. They enjoyed the cave landscapes, simply delighted in being in a completely alien atmosphere. But about 20 minutes into the walk, the group noticed that the water under their feet began to rise and quickly reached knee level.
It was at that moment they thought that maybe entering this cave wasn’t such a good idea after all. Following the rising water, the group suddenly heard a loud crack and roar in the distance. They all looked up and saw a wave of water rushing into the cave at furious speed. When the water surged toward the group, everyone rushed to find higher ground.
The entire group was disoriented and gripped by panic, caught off guard by the insane speed at which the water burst into the cave. They had never seen anything like it. The water level rose from 50 cm to 10 m in just 1 minute. It’s hard even to imagine how quickly it happened. While the whole group panicked, Helen and Jon spotted a ledge on higher ground that they were sure they could climb to.
They scrambled toward the ledge and Helen fell, but Jon managed to catch her and lift her up. In this struggle, they both lost their flashlights. When Helen was on the ledge, they both sighed with relief, but the water was still rising. Looking down, they were forced to watch as their entire group was engulfed by the raging currents.
The force of the water was such that they had absolutely no chance of resisting the flow. First, they saw the guide and the 10-year-old German boy being swept away. Soon after, the Swiss couple and their two beautiful girls disappeared into the rushing waters below. After sitting there for some time fending off insects and flies, they both lost hope of rescue.
Jon said to Helen, “If we stay here, we’ll die.” And then Jon thought that if he jumped into the water stream, he could swim with the current to the other end of the cave and call for help. Against all his instincts, Jon told Helen to stay put and wait for rescuers. He slowly slid into the water and was immediately caught by the powerful current, managing to shout to his beloved, “I love you.
” before he was pulled underwater and he disappeared from sight. And just like that, Jon was gone. At that moment, Helen realized she was alone in the pitch darkness of the cave without flashlights, surrounded by huge spiders, enraged bats, and insects. a real nightmare. Without a way to get out and without a way to tell anyone she was there, she sat on the ledge and screamed for help.
But she was screaming into the void. No one could hear her. Helen slowly sat down on the ledge, replaying over and over in her mind the image of her beloved shouting and being swallowed by the water. She resigned herself to dying there alone. She sat in pitch darkness, watching only a firefly on the cave wall and thinking that if the water rose above it, she was dead.
She considered jumping into the water to shorten her suffering. She thought that if the water continued to rise, death would only be more agonizing, but if she jumped, it would end quickly. However, she resisted these thoughts and just kept waiting. Helen was wearing only a bikini top, a tank top, and shorts.
So, she began to battle the cold, singing and praying, afraid of losing consciousness. In the end, the thirst became so intense that she was forced to drink the water flowing through the cave. But the water was dirty and polluted, full of animal excrement and mud. That’s how she sat in pitch darkness under the sounds of running water echoing through the halls, wondering if she would ever get out of there.
It seemed like several days had passed. She sat in the dark, simply awaiting her death. And suddenly, to her relief, Helen heard shouts from somewhere in the cave. She shouted back, “I’m here. I’m here.” It was a local resident. He came barefoot with only a bamboo stick in his hands. Speaking broken English, he led her out of the cave.
Together with a group of rescuers, they walked back through the jungles, removing leeches that had attached to their legs. When Helen reached the cave entrance, she was met with a horrific sight. Her entire group all in body bags, and then it hit her that she was the only survivor. As for her boyfriend, Jon, Helen believed he had made it out of the cave himself.
The rescuers told Helen that Jon was waiting for her at the dock in an ambulance. But when they got there, Jon was nowhere to be found. Helen asked where he was. They dragged her into the ambulance and simply said he was dead, which was an absolutely heartbreaking and crushing blow for Helen. Her life was shattered.
She fell into manic fits, lashing out at the rescuers and screaming. But nothing could be done. He died just a few minutes after plunging into the deadly current. Helen was supposed to return to Britain on Tuesday, just 3 days after they entered the cave. Now, Helen had to fly back alone. They say she was told Jon was alive to avoid shocking her before she could identify the victims.
Helen suffered terribly from nightmares and devastation. She was haunted by a crushing sense of guilt. She also contracted life-threatening wilds disease which she caught during the hours spent in the cave and from the water she was forced to drink. Later, she buried Jon, completing this horrific ordeal.
Officials commented on the accident, stating that they had ordered the national park closed during the monsoon season and that signs in English and Thai had been placed everywhere, warning tourists not to enter the cave during heavy rains. These warnings were completely ignored which became the cause of all these people’s deaths.
All that remains is to wonder why they decided to enter the cave. First during the monsoon season and second after being repeatedly warned not only by official guides but also by warning signs. This is a tragedy that could undoubtedly have been avoided. Rest in peace all who perished in this incident.
