The Big Hole which is also known by its other name, Kimberley Mine, in South Africa is the world’s largest hole which humans excavated. It was dug by 50.000 miners who were working in diamond mine after first diamonds were found there in 19th century. They found there amazing amount of diamonds, precisely, they have found 2720 kilograms of diamonds there.
The most amazing fact is that workers who worked there weren’t using any advanced tools or machines while thy were digging. The hole was dug between 1871 and 1914 when there weren’t any advanced machines for digging so, they literally dug this hole by hands using some very basic tools like picks and shovels. Using that basic tools workers managed to move amazing 22 million tons of soil.
The Big Hole is about 215 meters deep and 463 meters wide. After the mine was abandoned because it became too dangerous for miners to dig further, the mine was shut down. However, company De Beers Brothers who owned that mine continued with diamonds exploitation by underground mining.
After excavation was finished, this place started to fill with underground waters and, as you can see from photos, it looks now like a lake. Water took about 20% (40 meters) of the depth of whole hole.
Image Sources: Wikipedia.
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May 12th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
your website blows
May 14th, 2010 at 3:44 am
Agreed
May 16th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
‘big hole 7′ picture is a mine in Russia, it is no longer South Africa
May 17th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
I wonder where did they “dumped” all the tons of soil dug from here, maybe, it could make an artificial island or a small mountains, anywhere.
June 4th, 2010 at 5:41 am
dude tha last picture is not belong there.
June 9th, 2010 at 11:41 pm
indeed last picture its a satelite pic from largest mining hole in Russia
January 19th, 2011 at 5:50 pm
Uh, I think the largest human excavated hole is the Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana, USA at 540M deep and over a mile wide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Pit
Dave