The deepest hole we've dug is probably the Mir diamond mine in Siberia, at 525m [0]
(A quick internet search will probably say that the Bingham copper mine in the US is deeper, but that was dug at the bottom of an existing canyon, giving it a head start; the Mir mine started... Well, basically with a bunch of guys with shovels in the middle of the tundra.
Shout out for the deepest hand dug well: https://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/places/utilities/woodin...
(This is where the 'deepest hole dug' contest gets a whiff of 'No true Scotsman...')
On some levels I find the well more impressive than the mine, though. A 4ft diameter hole dug 1285ft deep means some 400 cubic meters of dirt was removed. By hand. That's an awful lot of blisters by anyone's standards.
I doubt the borehole in the original article goes straight down. Boreholes tend to list left and right.
A mine of the crazy deep variety, then, in my book, is more of a tunnel than a hole in the strict sense - hence it, too, is disqualified.
YMMV. :)
https://www.motor1.com/news/313750/top-gear-hole-digging-con...
>"I was almost physically sick watching this last night," said Mark Stevens, chartered safety and health practitioner at The Building Safety Group. "In fact, I had to turn over straight away I couldn’t watch it anymore."
But personally attacking strangers on the internet is acceptable too.
These were done using power equipment, but they aren’t boreholes.