The discovery was classified as “large” and experts hiked for several hours before reaching the base of the sinkhole and found three cave entrances.
Chen Lixin, who led the cave expedition team, told Xinhua that the dense undergrowth on the sinkhole floor was as high as a person’s shoulders and that some of the ancient trees at the bottom were 131ft (40m) tall.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to know that there are species found in these caves that have never been reported or described by science until now,” Mr Lixin said.
It always amazes me how small the world seems to some people. It must be the internet that makes it seem like there are no places left that have not been visited by humans, when in fact there are loads of places that are undiscovered. This sinkhole is just one of them.
I bet there is a whole world in it though…just imagine if there were “new” species hiding away. While I’m glad to see these places, I often wish that nobody knew about them…they have been left alone quite happily for so long, it seems wrong that Man should poke about and (possibly) ruin it.
China’s Guangxi region is known for its beautiful and sometimes dramatic karst formations. In November 2019, Xinhua reported the discovery of a giant cluster of sinkholes in the Guangxi region. Before this, in 2016, scientists discovered the world’s largest cluster of sinkholes in Shaanxi province in northwest China.
In 2020, six people were killed when a sinkhole swallowed a bus and a number of pedestrians in northwest China. And in 2016, a huge sinkhole opened in the middle of a busy intersection in China with the incident recorded on surveillance cameras.
Another sinkhole opened in 2021, during massive floods in China’s Zhengzhou when a pieces of road collapsed around it, with several people sucked into the deep hole.
