UPDATED
A 65-year-old diver has died while exploring one of South Australia’s best-known submerged cave systems.
At about 10:30am today (30 November), emergency services responded to a call concerning an incident at Tank Cave near Tantanoola, about 25km from Mount Gambier.
Officers from the Water Operations Unit of the South Australia Police (SAPOL) led a recovery operation and the unnamed diver, said to have come from the neighbouring state of Victoria, was later found dead.
UPDATE 2 DECEMBER: Diver named
The diver who died in Tank Cave has been named as Gary Gibson. His body was recovered by police divers and cave-diving experts including Tham Luang cave-rescue hero Richard Harris yesterday afternoon (1 December).
Gibson, an experienced cave-diver, had been diving with two other men and was said to have known the system well. He was a member of the Cave Divers Association of Australia (CDAA), which has launched its own internal investigation into his death.
SAPOL gave no details about what had happened but said that it had “no further safety concerns” related to the site following the incident. A formal report was being prepared for the coroner.
Together with its associated system Green Waterhole, Tank Cave contains some 10km of intersecting passages, making it by far the longest underwater cave system in the state and the second-longest in Australia.
Featuring manageable depths that allow for long dives the system has been explored for decades, though new passages and connections have still been found in recent years. Also used for advanced-level cave-diver training, access is restricted and controlled by the Cave Divers Association of Australia (CDAA).
UPDATE 2 DECEMBER: Diver named