Looks like the Pozzo del Merro sinkhole in Italy no longer has the deepest underwater cave in the world.
That record now belongs to the Hranice Abyss in the Czech Republic. A research team led by Polish deep diver Krzysztof Starnawski determined that the abyss has a depth of at least 1,325 feet/404 meters, or 39 feet/12 meters deeper than the Pozzo del Merro in Italy.
Starnawski, who set a world record for the deepest closed-circuit rebreather dive in 2011 (928 feet/283 meters) off the coast of Egypt, has been plumbing the depths of the Hranice Abyss — Hranická Propast in Czech — for almost 20 years. He recently led a Czech-Polish team of divers back to the abyss, where he dove down to 656 feet/200 meters to set a line for an unmanned underwater rover. That rover subsequently dove down to the world-record-setting 1,325 feet/404 meters.
For more details, check out the video below of Starnawski exploring the Hranice Abyss last year or read the full story of the world record at Scuba Diver Life.