Cave Dweller in Italy Sets Record

An Italian speleologist has spent more than 200 days in a chilly, damp underground cave, setting a record for cave dwelling in isolation, Italian newspapers reported Monday.

Maurizio Montalbini lived alone in the limestone Cave of the Wind, about 600 feet underground, in the Appennine mountains above this Adriatic port city, the newspapers said.

Montalbini, 33, in his first verbal contact with the outside world since he was lowered into the cave Dec. 14, 1986, was told by a doctor on the emergency phone Sunday night that he had broken the previous record.