One cave in Costa Rica has attracted tourists due to its notoriety. Apparently, the cave is fatal, and anyone or any creature is not welcome to enter it. Otherwise, they will die.
Cave of Death in Costa Rica
The Cave of Death in Costa Rica, also called Cueva de la Muerte in Spanish, is located at the Recreo Verde tourist complex in the district of Venecia. It is 6.5 feet deep and nearly 10 feet long. However, no one has entered deep into it because it can instantly kill any creature at the entrance.
Fortunately, the entrance is too small for humans. Despite this, many flocked to the place for social media content.
"This is a very small cave, but it's unusual in that there is a substantial seep of carbon dioxide gas coming from the far slot at the back of the cave," said Guy van Rentergem, a Belguim-based cave explorer.
As mentioned, humans are generally safe because they don't fit into the entrance. However, small animals like snakes, birds, and rodents
However, snakes, birds, rodents, and other small creatures immediately die due to asphyxia upon entrance.
The expert claims that the slot emits almost 30 kg of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per hour, equivalent to the speed of an average car traveling 256 kilometers.
According to van Rentergem, this 263 tons of carbon dioxide is the equivalent of driving 2.2 million kilometers, or 56 times, around the world in a car in a year.
He also claims the gas could have volcanic origin. However, it's unknown exactly where it comes from.
One of van Rentergem's team members shows off the might of the Cave of Death by holding a lit torch up to the door during his visit. The flame goes out in seconds because CO2 replaces the oxygen surrounding the fire and causes it to burn.
Since carbon dioxide is heavier than air, concentrations of the gas are higher closer to the cave's base, which increases the risk to small animals.
A 2022 study by Italian researchers said that natural caves are prone to hazardous carbon dioxide concentrations. This is because they encourage the emission of "geogenic" CO2, or CO2 resulting from geological processes on Earth, into the atmosphere.
In natural caves, atmospheric CO2 concentrations can rise to dangerous levels, posing a risk to individuals who frequent the underground space. People who explore these kinds of caverns could underestimate the risks because, generally speaking, the toxicity of CO2 in high amounts is poorly understood. The Romanian Movile Cave and the Italian Carburangeli Cave are other caverns with high gas concentrations.
World's Deadliest Cave Home to Fatal Viruses
Although the Cave of Deaths from Costa Rica is fatal, another cavern is also considered the deadliest because it gives rise to Ebola and Marburg virus. Kitum Cave in Mount Elgon, National Park in Kenya, is home to the deadliest viruses in the world.
In 1980, while investigating Kitum Cave, a French engineer at a nearby sugar mill came into touch with the body-melting Marburg virus. He died in a Nairobi hospital quite shortly.
The man's fast decline from viral hemorrhagic or blood-letting fever was described in a book about the case as "as if the face is detaching itself from the skull," with his face appearing to hang from the underlying bone as connective tissue in it broke down.
A Danish schoolboy on vacation with his family was the next casualty of Kitum Cave seven years later. The youngster died from a similar hemorrhagic virus called Ravn.
The cave's precious salty minerals have drawn elephants, buffaloes, antelope, leopards, and hyenas from western Kenya. Still, Kitum has also become a breeding ground for zoonotic infections because of this, the researchers say. The 600-foot-deep tunnel has been enlarged and deepened by elephants on multiple occasions, only for disease-carrying bats to take up residence there.
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