The 5 Most Tragic Cave Disaster Stories

Exploring caves is normally quite safe in comparison to rock climbing or kayaking, but the problems happen when the cave is either unexplored or the ones going into it are completely unprepared. The following five stories all involved people who either put themselves in unnecessary danger or didn’t know what they were doing in the first place.

Sterkfontein Caves – Peter Verhulsel

Peter was known to everyone as a risk taker and jumped at the chance to go exploring with his friends in Sterkfontein Caves in South Africa. The year was 1984 and caving equipment wasn’t quite what it is today, but they were still properly geared up to go into the cave system. The route through the caves is marked by a guideline that people can follow along the main path to the exit, but this wasn’t fun enough for Peter.

He Kept trying to go down the unmarked side paths that were closed off to the public, and the first two times he did this, his friends managed to find him and bring him back. On his third attempt to explore a side path, he went a little too far and swam through a series of small tunnels until he found himself in a cavern with no idea of how to get back. His friends couldn’t find him and he only had enough oxygen for a short dive underwater, which was too risky considering he didn’t know which way to go. He found a small island in the flooded cavern and stayed there waiting for rescue, which didn’t come for six weeks. He had long since starved to death, but before he did, he wrote a message in the sand to his wife and mother that said “I love you, Shirl and Ma.”

The Mossdale Cavern Disaster – 6 dead

One of the best-known cave disaster stories in English history is the Mossdale Cavern Disaster of 1967. A caving group of six people, including a man named John Ogden decided to explore a part of the Mossdale cave system that no one had seen before. The cave system is huge and the group found themselves over 3 kilometers below the surface, crawling through tunnels and tiny gaps between rocks, trying to see how deep they could get.

(A photo of the rescue attempt where people are building a dam to stop the flow of water into the cave)

In their defense, no one could have known what was coming, and being so far underground they were unable to hear the rain. It quickly turned into a heavy downpour and the creek at the base of the mountain started to flood into the mouth of the cave. By the time they heard the water rushing towards them, they were already trapped behind a 3 km underground river that was quickly flooding the cavern they were in. They didn’t know where to go to escape and ended up climbing into a crack at the top of the cavern they were in, but there was only room for one. John Ogden was the only one who could fit into the tiny gap and there was barely enough room for him, and there was no choice but to stay there while his five friends drowned below him. He stayed there for six days but by the time the rescue teams found him, it was too late.

The Cave Creek Disaster – 14 dead

On 28 April 1995, a class of students visited New Zealand’s Cave Creek on a school outing. There were 17 students in the group and they were on a guided tour led by a Department of Conservation (DOC) officer along one of the most popular routes through the cave. The route through the cave goes along various pathways and through tunnels, but one part involves a platform that overlooks a chasm that has a verticle drop of 40 meters (130 ft).

(A memorial to those who died in the accident)

When the students were standing on the platform, for some strange reason they decided to start shaking it, perhaps to try and scare the other students. The platform itself was unfortunately built for as cheap as possible, which meant using people who had no experience in engineering who decided to use nails instead of bolting it into place. The whole platform came away from the wall and slid into the chasm along with 17 students and the DOC officer. Only four of the students survived, with the other 13 and the officer dying during the initial fall. Because of the remoteness of the site, it took several hours before help was able to arrive and get them out, and the four surviving students were airlifted to hospital.

The Nam Talu Cave disaster – 8 dead

In October of 2007, Helena Carroll and her boyfriend John were enjoying a holiday in Thailand. They decided to visit a place called Nam Talu cave which is a popular tourist attraction, but they were repeatedly warned not to go into the cave because it was currently monsoon season in the country. Upon arrival at the cave, they ran into a group of tourists who all wanted to go inside to explore, and after a quick discussion between themselves, they concluded that it wasn’t a dangerous thing to do.

They weren’t that deep in the cave when the rain started, but they couldn’t hear the water from inside until it was too late. Suddenly a huge roar echoed through the tunnel behind them before a wave of water poured into the cavern. Several of the group were swept away but Helena and John managed to climb onto a ledge above the water, watching the entire floor submerge in rushing water. John thought the best plan was to try and swim out and get help, so he climbed into the water and was immediately taken away by the current, leaving Helena alone on the ledge. She sat there by herself for eight hours until rescue finally arrived, but when she was led out of the cave, the bodies of everyone else in the group had already been found and laid out on the grass, including John.

The Pluragrotta cave incident – 2 dead

On February 6, 2014, a group of five friends finally arrived at the Pluragrotta cave system in Norway after a long drive through Finland and Sweden. The group knew each other well and four of them were experienced divers, two of whom had been into the Pluragrotta caves before, but nowhere near as deep as the group planned to go this time. The whole cave system is flooded and mostly runs horizontally about 100 meters below the earth, and is considered a very dangerous dive that should only be attempted by professionals.

The group entered the cave through an opening at the bottom of a pond and started the journey to the other side, which was just over 2km away. The estimated time of the journey was five hours and there was no reason that it should take any longer because the cave had been explored before and it was a known route. During one section of the dive, one of the group tried to change his oxygen tank for a new one and got the tubing caught up in his equipment. He started to panic and wasn’t able to attach the new tank before passing out, he died in the middle of the dive and his friends had no choice but to leave him behind. Further, towards the end of the dive, the group came across another body that had been there for a while, and after losing their friend earlier, they started to panic. They had to swim very closely to the body in order to pass, and one of the group panicked too much and started to create more CO2 than his mask could expel, he passed out from CO2 poisoning and died while unconscious. The remaining three pressed on and reached the exit, but found a thick layer of ice blocking their path which had to be broken through. By the time they made it out, they had been underwater for 11 hours and the survivors all had a severe case of decompression sickness.