A giant underwater sinkhole found in the South China Sea believed to be the deepest in the world, as Chinese researchers said the blue hole measures 987 feet in depth.
Dubbed as the ‘dragon hole’ by the Chinese, as the limestone cave is 300.89 metres (987 feet) deep, which is nearly the height of The Shard with 1,003-foot-tall skyscraper, they claimed it’s the world’s deepest underwater sinkhole, finding announced by researchers from China, reported by Huanqiu.com, an affiliation to Peoples Daily Online.
According to China Radio International, the underwater sinkhole is located at 16.31 degrees north latitude and 111.46 degrees east longitude under the surface of the South China Sea.
Dean’s Blue Hole in Bahamas was thought to be the world’s deepest underwater sinkhole before Chinese researchers made the announcement on July 22.
The sinkhole is situated near the disputed Parcel Islands also known as the Xisha in Chinese and Hoàng Sa in Vietnamese. Underwater sinkholes are also known as blue holes.
According to State-run Huanqiu.com, Chinese experts measured the blue hole’s dimension. The sinkhole is 300.89 metres (987 feet) in depth with the help of sonar scanners, deep-sea current metres, underwater robots and underwater cameras, during field research between August 2015 and June 2016.
They also measured its width which is 130 metres (426 feet) at the entrance and about 36 metres (118 feet) at the bottom. Experts told they also discovered about 20 marine species in the cave.
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