Cavers find snakes but no genies in Yemen's 'Well of Hell'

Despite the sinkhole's reputation as a prison for genies, the cavers found no demons, only snakes, dead animals and cave pearls

A team of Omani cavers has made what is believed to be the first descent to the bottom of Yemen's fabled Well of Barhout -- a natural wonder shunned by many locals, who believe it is a prison for genies.

The forbidding 'Well of Hell', whose dark, round aperture creates a 30-metre (100 foot) wide hole in the desert floor of Yemen's eastern province of Al-Mahra, plunges approximately 112 metres (367 feet) below the surface and, according to some accounts, gives off strange odours.

"There were snakes, but they won't bother you unless you bother them," Mohammed al-Kindi, a geology professor at the German University of Technology in Oman, told AFP.

Footage provided to AFP showed cave formations and grey and lime-green cave pearls, formed by dripping water.

"We collected samples of water, rocks, soil and some dead animals but have yet to have them analysed," he said, adding that a report will soon be made public.

Yemeni officials told AFP in June that they did not know what lay in the depths of the pit, which they estimated to be "millions and millions" of years old, adding that they had never reached the bottom.

"We noticed strange things inside. We also smelled something strange... It's a mysterious situation."

Many residents of the area are uneasy about visiting the vast pit or even talking about it, for fear of ill fortune.

The country has been embroiled in a devastating civil war since 2014 that has triggered what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with two-thirds of its 30-million population dependent on some form of aid.

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