Yes, it would have disapeared by itself by time. As with everything else, there is some latency for Project-GC to detect data changes. This falls into the category edited data and can therefore take some time to detect.
Since 1-2 weeks ago, one can personally ask the system to refresh geocaches using the self-support-system. It can be found by clicking a Support-button, which can be found at almost every page of Project-GC.