The trailer for "A Crack in the Mountain" - the story of the largest cave in the world/Marlovski Media production.
Son Dong Cave in Vietnam is considered the largest in the world, when in fact no one has been able to reach its end and accurately estimate its size.
Moreover, only 4 years ago, thanks to the work of a research expedition that worked in the cave, they discovered that it is actually bigger than they thought - and the hand is still tilted.
In the 1990s, a local resident discovered the entrance to this giant cave, hidden in the heart of a tropical forest in Vietnam, in a place declared Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park.
The cave, called Son Doong (Son Doong, "mountain river cave"), was explored and discovered by researchers for the first time only in 2009 - and is considered the largest in the world - its central hall alone boasts an average width of about 150 meters and a length of more than five kilometers "M.
Until 4 years ago it was known that the area of Sun Dong Cave was 38.5 million square meters.
In 2019, the CNN network reported that a delegation of three British cave explorers found an unknown underground water tunnel that actually connects the Son Dong cave with another huge cave - Hang Thung.
The discovery of the new connection increases its area by an additional 1.6 million square meters. "It's like someone suddenly discovering another bump on the summit of Everest, which will add another 1,000 meters to its height," says Howard Limbert, a technical consultant at the Oxalis company, which provides adventure tours in the national park and assisted the expedition The study, "In fact, you could take any other cave on Earth and easily stuff it into Son Dong Cave.
Her size is simply outrageous."
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The largest cave in the world has its own ecosystem, a mysterious river flows through it, it even has a rainforest and unknown species of animals and until 2009 no human visited it.
It is 200 meters high, 150 meters wide and to put it in perspective, through the largest opening of the cave a Boeing 747 can also pass without damaging anything.
The underground area is so huge that it can hold several 40-story skyscrapers.
The cave is so large that many consider it a world in itself, and its critics compare it to the planet Pandora from the movie "Avatar".
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The underground river in it remains a mystery because no researcher has yet reached its end.
It is this river that created the unique environment and ecosystem of the cave.
Sun Dong is home to seven new species of fish, spiders, scorpions, shrimp, woodlice and plankton.
These unique animals are completely white and eyeless, as an evolutionary result of living in total darkness.
In the depths of the cave there are huge sentinels, waterfalls, complex passages and tall jungle trees.
The sentinel named Hope and Vision may well be the world's largest of its kind.
At a whopping 80 meters tall, it is much taller than the current title holder - a 70 meter tall sentinel in Jijin Cave, China.
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Swimming pools in total darkness next to trees 30 meters high
Although Sun Dong is mostly dark, the collapsing ceiling of the cave has created a large opening that lets in a lot of light.
The cave passages are lit from two openings that can flood it with beams of spectacular sunlight, but visibility inside remains limited to a depth of one kilometer due to incredible clouds created by the cave's own weather system.
Critics describe Son Duong as otherworldly.
Limbert, who led the cave expedition that mapped Son Dong, described the cave with the words: "There is nothing like this place anywhere in the world. It's not just the size - although size is important (as they say) - but the variety of unusual and amazing areas inside the cave, such as pools Swimming in complete darkness and 400 million year old fossils."
Next to the underground river, there is a passageway embedded in corals that became hungry hundreds of millions of years ago.
There is also an underground lake with temperatures of 20 degrees Celsius that visitors swim in for their pleasure.
During the rainy season, another lake appears in the cave filled with beautiful water in greenish colors.
Deep inside the cave, there is an ancient forest with trees that grow to a height of over 30 meters.
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Sun Dong Cave is estimated to have existed quietly for between two and five million years, until it was originally discovered by a local farmer named Ho Khan in 1991. While searching for agarwood - a precious plant - in the forest, Khan was caught in a thunderstorm and had to seek shelter.
Thus he found a small opening to a cave under a cliff, from which mist blew and heard the sounds of the river roaring inside.
Khan did not go inside and the cave remained hidden for the next 18 years.
It was only after members of the British Vietnam Cave Expedition team asked the farmer about the cave that it was first explored.
On April 7, 2009, Howard Limbert and his team, along with local farmer Ho Khanh, led an expedition into the cave.
"We were the first people to go in there," Limbert told Lonely Planet, "There is no evidence that anyone has visited Son Dong before. It's usually easy to see in caves. Also, all entrances and exits involve near-vertical drops of at least 85 meters using technical equipment."
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Price for a trip to the cave - 3,000 dollars
In 2013, the cave was opened for tourist visits and since then it is considered one of the most beautiful and fascinating destinations in the world.
Those who wish to travel in the cave must do so through organized tours of the same tourism company that received the concession.
The trip includes a descent of 80 meters into the depths of the cave using harnesses, crossing an underground river, trekking in jungles, climbing cliffs and more.
The trip lasts four days and includes overnight camping inside the cave.
The trips in the cave are held in the months of January-August, when the price per person is about 3,000 dollars.
There are no more than ten travelers on each trip and in total up to 1,000 travelers arrive there per year alone.
In 2013, the Guinness Book of Records declared Son Dong the largest cave in the world.
With a volume of 38.5 million cubic meters, it was determined to be 5 times larger than the Deer Cave in Malaysia, which was once considered the largest natural cave in the world.
Since Sun Duong has not been fully explored, there is a possibility that it may be even larger.
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