SHILLONG: The 25-day expedition titled ‘Caving in the Abode of Clouds’ was commenced from February 6 to March 2, and continued the ongoing exploration of Krem Chympe from its upper entrance in the village of Sielkan in East Jaintia Hills and then to undertake further exploration in Mawsynram.
The expedition team comprised of 28 cavers from the United Kingdom, Austria, the Netherlands, Romania, Switzerland, Lebanon and members of the Meghalaya Adventurers’ Association (MAA).
The team was accompanied by a professor from NEHU along with three students for few days to study and collect samples from Krem Dam.
The expedition was divided into two phases with the first starting from February 6-17 in the Sielkan/Sakwa area in East Jaintia Hills where Krem Chympe was extended and ten other new caves explored and mapped.The 2017 expedition explored and mapped 13.8 kms of new cave passage.
The main achievement of the expedition at Sakwa was the extension of Krem Sakwa from 520 m to 5113 m and linking it to Krem Chympe, making Chympe cave system jump up from being India’s sixth longest cave (13,332 m) to fourth place (18, 571 m).
The cave, Krem Chympe is expected to gain more length as Krem Sakwa is still ongoing.
In the second phase, the achievement of the expedition is the further extension of Krem Puri, at 8, 269 m, it was already India’s longest sandstone cave. Now with its extension to 12, 367 m it is considered one of the top sandstone caves in the world.
The MAA stated that till March, the whereabouts of over 1,620 caves and cave locations are known in Meghalaya of which 1000 have been explored or partially explored to yield in excess of 460 kms of surveyed cave passage, with much more waiting to be discovered.
