This story appears in the August 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine.
This content is Subscriber-Exclusive
You must have a National Geographic subscription to explore this article.
Premium Content
When a sudden flood fills a massive cave, photographer Robbie Shone and an elite team of Russian explorers scramble to survive.
Expedition leader Pavel Demidov climbs away from the terminal sump, the pool that marks the deepest point in Veryovkina, the deepest known cave on Earth. Robbie Shone took this photograph two days before a flood forced the cavers to evacuate.