Fox News Flash top headlines for August 12
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A team of over 100 climbers is preparing a complex mission to recover the body of a Russian man who disappeared into the world’s deepest cave nine months ago.
The dead climber, named by local media as Sergei Kozeev, went missing in November last year. Explorers discovered his body on Aug. 3 after noticing rope near the entrance to the cave, then some belongings before coming across his body.
The body was still hanging some 1,000 meters down into the vast cave, The Daily Star reported.
The Veryovkina Cave sits in Abkhazia, a state in the South Caucasus to which both Russia and Georgia claim ownership. (Petr Lyubimov )
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The Veryovkina Cave sits in Abkhazia, a state in the South Caucasus to which both Russia and Georgia claim ownership. Many consider the cave to be the deepest in the world, with one team going around 7,200 feet (1.3 miles) deep.
The Union of Cavers asked the missing person’s organization Lisa Alert to help identify the deceased climber using photos on a phone discovered near the body.
The cause of death remains an item of speculation, with some believing the fall killed him while other suggest hypothermia in the near-freezing cave might have taken him first, according to The Daily Mail.
The team of climbers will need to descend into the cave to retrieve the body – a climb that no person should have made alone.
Kozeev’s solo expedition is considered a gross violation of safety regulations.
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"The deceased was a so-called multitourist, who are involved in different sports. So he decided to take up speleology, but, unfortunately, he chose a difficult cave, which ruined him," Evgeny Snetkov, a member of the Board of the Union of Cavers, told Radio Sputnik.