Underwater Cave Discovered Under Inactive Volcano

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(Hürriyet Newspaper, 1 June 2019)


                              Looks kinda spooky!

Diving instructor Mahmut İğde and Dr. Cihan Öztürk have discovered
a cave under Kel Dağı (mountain), a 1736-meter high  inactive volcano
in Hatay province's Yayladağ district.  The cave is entered by diving
19 meters under water and opens up 120 meters further on.


                                             Kel Dağı

Kel Dağı's mythological name was Casius and local people know it as
Cebel-i Akra.  İğde explained that "the mountain is known by names
such as Hazzi Dağı, Şapon Dağı, Fırtına Toplayan Dağ and Zeus
Kasios.  I was returning from a dive with Dr. Öztürk when we noticed
a depression in the wall to our right.  So we turned on our flash lights
and went in.  The cave had a big entrance and a larger area than other
caves.  40-50 meters ahead there was a second entrance 2-meters wide
and 3-meters high."


                                 Coming up for air.


"We realized that this was quite a big cave so we planned a second
dive to explore it.  Since then we've made nearly 200 more dives and
we keep on finding new aspects of the cave. The cave's furthest
point is 120 meters from the entrance and the entire cave is about
300 meters, comprised of 2 big and 2 smaller galleries, 2 tunnels
and 5 air pockets.  We saw many sea creatures living in the cave,
too."   


Kel Dağı is in Yayladğı district on Turkey's
border with Syria.