Mexico City: A pair of foreign cave divers in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula said that they have found subterranean passages that constitute the world's longest underwater cave system.
British cave diver Steve Bogaerts says he and German Robbie Schmittner found flooded underground passages connecting two previously known cave systems - a discovery that shows how interconnected and vulnerable the Yucatan's fabled underground water system is.
Gene Melton, chairman of the Cave Diving Section of the US based National Speleological Society, a non-governmental association that tracks cave explorations, confirmed the discovery.
For thousands of years, the Mayan Indians depended on water found in the caves and in lakes formed by sinkholes - areas where the caves' ceilings collapsed, opening them to the surface.
The lakes dot the Yucatan peninsula, now one of the world's fastest-growing sites for tourism and resort developments.
Bogaerts says his dives proved a connection between the Nohoch Nah Chich caves and the Sac Actun system, which together measure 153 kilometres in length.
"That connection shows that many of those seemingly isolated watering holes are part of a single larger system," he said.
The longest previously known submerged cave system is the 145-km Ox Bel Ha system, in the same general area, according to documents posted by the Speleological Society on its website.
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