3 Hikers Survive 13 Days Trapped In Cave In China

A man and his two young nephews were rescued 13 days after getting lost in a cave without any food, the official Xinhua News Agency said Saturday. Sun Zhongfu, 22, and his nephews, Li Chengqing, 10, and Li Wanqun, 12, wandered into the cave in Guizhou province with a candle, but it soon went out, Xinhua said. They were unable to find the exit in the darkness. They survived by drinking water from a stream. The report said the three were ''thin but in good spirits.'' Xinhua said five men fishing in a stream near the cave's entrance on Sept. 22 heard the trio's weak cries for help.

Bodies Of 2 Divers Removed From Cave At Bottom Of Lake

The bodies of two Central Florida divers not trained to dive in caves were recovered Wednesday after the men ran out of air in an underwater cavern in Lake Apopka.

''It looks to me like a couple of open-water divers who didn't have the certification to go into a cave,'' said diver Jim Calvin, owner of Underwater Adventures.

Calvin and two other divers recovered the bodies of Kevin James Gokey, 26, and Daniel Eugene Smith, 30, at 2:30 a.m.

The men were together, floating in 96 feet of water, just inside a tight spot between some rocks leading into the cave, said Calvin, 43.

Calvin accompanied Mark Long, 36, an expert cave diver who is specially trained in cave rescue and recovery, on the dive. Lake County sheriff's divers did not have the training necessary to recover the bodies, said Lake sheriff's Lt. Chris Daniels.

Carbon Monoxide Blamed In 9 Deaths In French Cave

Nine people died during a teen-agers' outing in a cave in northern France used by German troops in World War II to conceal V1 ''doodlebug'' rockets, rescue workers said Thursday. Dead were three teen-agers, the father of one of them and five members of the team that went to look for them. The nine were apparently killed by a high concentration of carbon monoxide gas in the tunnels, outside the village of Buchy near the northern River Seine port of Rouen. The lethal gas may have been created by a fire lit by the teen-agers. The cave was used during the war to hide some of the V1 rockets that German forces fired at Britain across the English Channel.

Source: Orlando Sentinel

Paintings In Cave Could Be Oldest

Scientific tests have shown some of the masterly drawn beasts discovered last December in a cave in the Ardeche to be at least 30,000 years old, making them the world's oldest known paintings, the culture ministry announced this week.

The ministry said French and British specialists had determined that charcoal pigments of two rhinoceroses and a bison found in the Chauvet cave in the southeastern Ardeche were between 30,340 and 32,410 years old.

The oldest previously known cave painting has been dated at 27,110 years old and shows the simple outline of a human hand; it was discovered in 1992 near Marseilles, France. The art at Lascaux, which is similar in style to that in the newly found cave, is thought to be about 15,000 to 17,000 years old.

Archaeologists were surprised by the early date for the Chauvet drawings; the team studying the great underground gallery, with more than 300 animal images, many of them leaping or running across great panels, had initially estimated they had been painted perhaps 20,000 years ago.

Dig In France Unearths Iron Age Cave, Skeletons

A rare, exceptionally well-preserved example of Iron Age burial practices has been found in a cave in southwestern France - 22 skeletons, some still decked out in their funeral finery. Archaeologists think the cave, composed of two galleries and a well, dates to about 600 B.C. It was discovered by amateur speleologists in February 1994, but the Culture Ministry held off announcing the find until the cave could be sealed from the public. Experts said the discovery was significant because cremation, not burial, was the usual form of disposing of the dead during the Iron Age.

Source: Orlando Sentinel