On September 27th the first of the Fenix pods arrives at Camp Hope. ibid.
Up to one billion viewers worldwide watched … finale of Chile’s greatest endeavour. ibid.
A miracle beyond imagining: to rescue intact thirty-three human beings who were trapped underground longer than anyone in the history of mining. Against all odds Operation San Lorenzo becomes a symbol of unity, endurance, and faith, and changed Chile and the miners for ever. ibid.
The Atacama Desert, Northern Chile: On August 5th 2010 a massive explosion rocked this landscape, and 33 miners were trapped half a mile below. For 17 days the miners have no contact with the world outside. Chilean Miners: 17 Days Buried Alive BBC 2011
The copper mine at San Jose was notorious; it paid higher wages to compensate for a bad safety record. ibid.
No-one was even sure how many men were down the mine. ibid.
The men were expecting to find at least two days’ supply of food as required by mining regulations. Management had once again failed to prepare for an emergency. ibid.
The temperature in the mine was over forty degrees. ibid.
On the third day there was a further collapse. ibid.
The daily prayers were followed by a general meeting at which decisions were taken establishing democracy from the beginning. ibid.
The miners had established daily routines but still had no idea if anyone was even looking for them. ibid.
Their campaign succeeded; soon drills began to appear from all over Chile. ibid.
So on day seventeen the rescuers’ camera found not rubble but the first images of the missing men. They would have to wait another fifty-two days before they could be brought to the surface. ibid.
Privately, they are still haunted by what they lived through. ibid.
Many plants take refuge under the ground in the hottest parts of the year. David Attenborough, The Private Life of Plants: Surviving, BBC 1995
This is our planet’s final frontier. An inner world where only the most adventurous dare to go. Beneath our feet are countless miles of cave shafts and passages. David Attenborough, Planet Earth e4: Caves, BBC 2006
This is the biggest underground passage in the world ... It’s Deer Cave in Borneo. ibid.
The discovery of life that exists without drawing any of its energy from the sun shows us once again how complex and surprising the underground world can be. ibid.
The mole: surprisingly common yet hardly ever seen. In a private system of tunnels the mole follows a secret life spent in total darkness under the ground. David Attenborough, cited Night on Film: An A-Z of the Dark, BBC 2011
We think we know Britain’s wildlife. But there’s a secret world beneath our feet. A hidden kingdom teems with millions of burrowing creatures, their lives shrouded in mystery. Why do they live under ground? Where do they sleep and eat, and how do they raise their young? Chris Packham, The Burrowers: Animals Underground, BBC 2013
Rabbit milk is one of the most nutritious in the animal kingdom. ibid.
An endangered British species about which very little is known: the water vole. ibid.
There are 75 million [winter] burrowers in the UK. Chris Packham, The Burrowers: Animals Underground II
Just one in ten rabbits will survive to see their first birthday. ibid.
The dramatic decline of the water vole in Britain. ibid.
Three iconic British burrowers each with a different home life: badgers, rabbits, water voles. Chris Packham, The Burrowers: Animals Underground III
Rabbits create these complex underground structures. ibid.
On the northern side of the city stands the Vatican’s secret archives: its treasures tightly secured in an underground bunker. Religious law and diplomatic correspondence dating back to the 8th century line every corridor, along with thousands of restricted files. Vatican: Hidden World, BBC 2010
Access to the main underground bunker of the archive is only granted to specially authorised archivists, because this bunker harbours papal correspondence from the last twelve hundred years. Especially sensitive are the files revolving around Pius X who became Pope at the brink of World War II. Today his papacy is reduced to one question: did he do everything in his power to help persecuted Jews? Even today the answers remain controversial, and many files have not yet been released. ibid.
A massive two-storey underground bunker. Usually only the archivists are allowed inside the vaults. Secret Access: The Vatican, History 2011
The jewel in the Vatican’s crown is St Peter’s Basilica ... Beneath this temple to God is a city of the dead. ibid.
Hades is the realm of the dead, and the Greeks believed that when they died they went down into Hades. Hades most likely could be seen as a kind of literal place underground. Dr Marvin Meyer, Chapman University
The real bad sinners go to Tartarus. Dr Marvin Mayer
Nearly four thousand years ago the Sumerians believed in a Great Below where the dead resided. Ancient Greeks wrote of an Abyss so deep that a soul could fall for a year and not reach the bottom. In the Hebrew book of Job the underworld is called Sheol and is described as a dark pit beneath the Earth. In fact almost all ancient cultures accepted the idea of an underworld, a universe of dead beneath the Earth. Gates of Hell, 2010
Hidden three hundred meters beneath the surface of the Earth is a natural wonder. A place as deadly as it is beautiful. With searing temperatures and humidity at 100% a person could die here in just fifteen minutes. Nothing like these giant crystals has ever been seen before. The largest is more than half a million years old ... They are in a place called Naica in the centre of Chihuahua ... The cave is filled with crystals five times bigger than ever seen before. Giant Crystal Cave, National Geographic 2008
Some are eleven meters long weighing fifty-five tons. ibid.
These stunning pillars are made from the same mineral as plaster-board: gypsum. ibid.
Scientists have come back to this deadly cavern, filled with razor-sharp treacherous deadly crystals. Where the temperature is 45 degrees Celsius and the humidity 99%. Return to the Giant Crystal Cave, National Geographic 2010
The crystal cave is located in the tiny mining cave of Naica in the Mexican state of Chihuahua two hundred and fifty kilometres south of the US border. ibid.
An alien world right here on Earth. The cavern is as high as a two-storey building and the size of a football pitch. Some crystals are eleven metres long, weighing fifty-five tons. They are as high as telegraph poles. ibid.
A team with a radical new idea: to find ancient viruses that have been trapped in the cave. ibid.
The scientists have discovered the crystal cave is not the only marvel buried beneath the Earth’s surface ... Others seek to find another crystal cave. ibid.
They are five times longer than any others discovered. Gypsum takes a long time to grow and needs constant conditions of water and heat. ibid.
The gypsum clung to the cave walls and floor growing over time into a giant crystal cave. But the mystery remains whether this geological marvel is unique. ibid.
In 2008 [Professor Penelope] Boston found bacteria trapped in inclusions – tiny air pockets that formed when the crystals were growing. She reanimated the bacteria and brought them back to life. ibid.
The crystal cave is unforgiving on technology. ibid.
They know the crystal cave will soon be flooded, and this is their last chance to unlock its mysteries. ibid.
An unexplored labyrinth … Giant holes in the ground hundreds of metres wide and big enough to contain unexplored subterranean forests. Earth’s Giant Hole, National Geographic 2013
Tiankeng: there are more here than anywhere else on Earth. ibid.
Could there really be a secret city hidden below Denver International Airport? America’s Book of Secrets: Freemasons s1e2, H2 2013
A cavernous control room sixteen storeys down under Central Park. Maybe a subterranean rail system that runs coast to coast. America’s Book of Secrets s3e8: Secret Underground
Secret passages, Arizona, 14th February 2014: Federal authorities confiscate forty-six pounds of marijuana and a half-pound of heroin inside a small home along the US/Mexico border ... A four hundred and eighty-one foot drug-smuggling tunnel. ibid.
Underground smuggling tunnels discovered along the US border. ibid.