Some news on what is happening in Malaysia's caves in 2009

For general items from the media, see Archives 2009

Mulu 2009

The 2009 BCRA expedition to Mulu takes places from 12 Jan - 12 March and will be based at Camp 5. There will be about 20 team members from UK plus people from Mulu and the Sarawak gov't depts. The group will be divided into 2 teams, the first one on site until about 12 Feb. The objectives are to follow up leads in Whiterock left from the 2007 expedition, and to find the link between Terikan and Cobweb-Benarat systems.

12 Feb : There has been a lot of flooding in eastern Sarawak, especially in the Baram area, and Mulu has also been flooded. The first team have now finished, having found almost 15 km of new passage in Whiterock, mostly infill at the southern end. Also just over 2km in the the birds nesters' cave at the top of the Benarat Cliffs.
Team 2 will focus on the northern end of Whiterock.

4 Mar - so far 26 kms found and Clearwater System is now 169 kms long.

More news will be added as info is released.

Gua Tambun rock paintings

Research has finally started on the Tambun rock paintings. A Ph.D. student of archaeology from USM is studying the paintings as part of his thesis, and erected scaffolding there in Jan 2009 in order to study the paintings.

Deer Cave no longer the world's largest passage

Deer Cave was considered to be the world's 'biggest/longest' passage until April 2009 when it was announced that a larger passage had been explored by British cavers in Vietnam, in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park in Quang Binh Province. Son Doong Cave is said to be 656 feet high and 492 feet wide, and 5km long, whereas Deer Cave is 328 feet (200m) high and 295 feet (140-150m) wide (info gathered from www sources). This makes it almost twice the size of Deer Cave. This new find was well reported on the www. National Geographic News did a feature on 24 July 2009.

A News Item

A News Item

© Liz Price 2009