Romanian Officials Seek Safe Way to Showcase Europe’s Longest Salt Cave
Jerusalem, 3 June, 2025 (TPS-IL) -- Bucharest (Agerpres) – Europe’s largest and the world’s second longest cave salt, Cave 6S at Manzalesti, Buzau County, a small town located on one of Romania’s largest salt deposits, has never been open to the public for safety reasons, but the local administration is looking for solutions to capitalize on it.
In the Slanic Valley in Buzau County, between the small towns of Manzalesti and Lopatari, tourists can enjoy spectacular landscapes that seem carved in salt over millions of years.
The Grunj at Manzalesti, located at the confluence of the Jgheab stream and the Slanic river, is shaped as a white pyramid formed by volcanic tuff and white marl.
“The Meledic Plateau is a natural, speleological and zoological reserve that covers 67.5 hectares. It is the site of one of the largest salt deposits in Romania. By dissolving the salt, spectacular relief forms of various sizes and physiognomies result. A representative example is the set of caves dug into salt by groundwater. (…) The attractions of the Meledic Plateau include the 6S cave, which was discovered in 1980, being the second longest salt cave in the world (3,190 meters), the Great Lake and Lake Castelu,” according to the Buzau County Council.
According to the local administration, following the abundant rainfall at the end of this May, no destruction was noticed in the area of the salt caves, which cannot be visited by tourists for safety reasons.
Despite its records, the S6 Cave has never been open to the general public, but the Manzalesti City Hall is calling for solutions together with specialists for its enhancement.
“We have no problems, nothing happened to us, it rained quietly, we did not have floods that caused problems,” Manzalesti Mayor Viorel Moldoveau told Agerpres. “You can’t visit the cave, it’s collapsed. It’s never been visited by the public. There were some cavers in 1986 who entered it, [but] the rest was not visited.”
Moldoveau added, “It is the first in Europe and the second in the world by length. We thought about showcasing it, but we need specialists to come up with solutions to prevent unpleasant events from happening. You can’t visit it, but tourists go outside, they look at it. There are also areas with salt that can be visited.”
However, specialists are of the opinion that the set of salt caves at Manzalesti, which includes the S6 Cave, cannot be capitalized on because of its natural characteristics. Access is forbidden because the walls and ceilings are in a continuous dynamic.
According to volcanologist Razvan Popa, manager of the Buzau Land UNESCO Geopark, “The caves cannot be visited in any way, they are very dangerous because salt is a plastic rock, you enter the cave, it can close behind you, not to mention that you can step on what seems solid rock at first sight that ends up behaving like quicksand. The caves were explored only by professional cavers, it is very dangerous for tourists, sometimes an entrance appears, then it disappears completely, either because the ceiling collapses and covers it, or it gets dissolved by water.”
He added, “They are always collapsing, others are being rebuilt, it is a dynamic process. What we did, some 360-degree movies inside, we didn’t go in very much, so that people could see them through VR, but otherwise you can’t do them, they are very dangerous.”
The Meledic Plateau and the Grunj of Manzalesti, are part of the Buzau Land Geopark, which was recognised as a UNESCO site in April 2022 as an area that includes elements of special geological interest, along with elements of ecological, archaeological, historical and cultural interest of world importance.
