In Phu Hoa commune, Dong Nai province, there is a very unique volcanic cave complex but its potential has not been fully exploited.
Explorers from the Berlin Cave Association (Federal Republic of Germany) and experts from the Vietnam Institute of Tropical Biology assessed the cave complex in the area of the Gia Ty forest, in the old Tan Phu and Dinh Quan districts, now in Phu Hoa commune, Dong Nai province, as one of the five longest lava caves in Southeast Asia.
La Nga Agricultural Seed Station is the unit that manages and protects this forest of ironwood trees. This is the only precious wood species in the Dong Nai area, planted around 1958 with 165 hectares to produce wood for gunstocks and green the land.
The cave complex in this forest is inhabited by many bats, so the locals call it Bat Cave.
Mr. Ho Huu Duc, an officer at La Nga Agricultural Seed Station, said that Bat Cave was a place of refuge and concealment for our soldiers during the resistance war against American imperialism. After the country was reunified, some people came to this land to reclaim land for farming.
At that time, they discovered many open-air caves. People were curious and went in to explore, however, because the cave system ran long underground, the cave entrances were narrow, and there was a lack of oxygen, so no one dared to go deeper.
Bat Cave has an arc shape, the dome above the area near the cave entrance is made up of layers of lava with many colors, mainly brown, with a layer of rock flowing into streaks of beautiful shimmering yellow. Many sections of the cave are lower and can reach a person's head.
Surveys by scientists show that the longest section of Bat Cave is 426m, forming a continuous, unbroken cave strip, the place recorded as the widest part of the cave is 4m high and 10m wide.
If considered as the only cave in the system, including the collapsed part, this Bat Cave has a total length of 534m and is considered one of the 5 longest lava caves in Southeast Asia.
According to the published documents of the Institute of Tropical Biology (Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology), in February 2013, researchers from the Institute of Tropical Biology and the Berlin Cave Association (Federal Republic of Germany) conducted a preliminary survey of a group of lava caves in Tan Phu district, Dong Nai province, along National Highway 20 to Da Lat.
These caves were formed when lava flows, possibly from the Quaternary Period, from numerous small cone volcanoes in Phu Tan and Dinh Quan districts, Dong Nai province.
This process creates typical tube-shaped cave passages near the surface that are only known when the cave mouth collapses. The team surveyed 11 lava tubes with a total length of 1.8 km.
“The longest cave found is Bat Cave, a long cave separated by a collapse and fault creating two caves, Bat Cave 1 and Bat Cave 2. The cave has several branches and connections as well as many entrances. The widest part of Bat Cave is recorded to be 4m high and 10m wide,” the document of the Institute of Tropical Biology said.
The caves in this area are inhabited by many species of animals. Bats are quite abundant, with populations of up to thousands in some caves. There are also many other species of animals belonging to the spider, centipede, scorpion, cave cricket, etc.
Currently, local authorities are promoting people to protect the above lava cave complex.
In some areas, the Nature Conservation Association has posted signs asking people not to enter caves to hunt bats in order to protect the uniqueness and biodiversity of the creatures living in the caves.
The leader of La Nga Agricultural Seed Station said that because the sapote forest is strictly protected, in recent years few people have entered the forest or entered the cave to explore.
Forest management units and local authorities propagate for people to join hands to protect the cave system as well as protect the forest, not to enter caves to hunt animals, especially bats.
Several groups of cave experts have come to survey and propose to coordinate with the locality to build and organize a cave exploration tourist site. However, to date, the locality and units have not agreed on the planning as well as the exploitation and conservation of this unique volcanic cave system./.
Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/kham-pha-hang-doi-1-trong-5-hang-dong-nui-lua-dai-nhat-dong-nam-a-post1057023.vnp
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