Dangerous Tunnels Revealed - World's Most Extreme - S01 EP06 - Adventure Documentary

all around the world roads  Bridges Railways waterways tunnels and airports in one way or another extreme from the crazy to the  deadly the Magnificent to the terrifying incredible engineering and astonishing  human stories these are the world's most extreme tunnels dark and menacing  deep underground far from help these are the 10 most extreme tunnels  on Earth one of the main fears that people have have going on the ground is the fear  of being in tuned from the Swiss Alps to a Japanese Metrop

olis tunnels can be wonders of  modern construction they're built by hardened Engineers desperate Smugglers and even the bare  hands of those who need them most plenty of spiders in this one tunnels can be refugees  in a crisis whether it's civil unrest solar flare or a meteor but they can also be scenes of  disaster you're stuck you incredibly incredibly dangerous now put on your hard hats as we count  down the 10 most extreme tunnels on Earth could anything be more extreme than that for number

  10 we're heading to Moscow for the craziest tunnel start with a strong measure  of Russian drivers add some narrow Lanes mix with low light and pour over black ice and you have a lethal Russian cocktail this is moscow's  Le foro tunnel the world's craziest at 3 km the seven Lane Le foro tunnel is  the longest in Moscow it's a crucial link on the inner Ring Road which keeps traffic flowing  around the city and it follows the route of the ancient ramparts that used to surround  the capital but t

hat's not what it's famous for with three crashes every day it's  notorious for horrific spine chilling accidents but no one can agree on  why the tunnel is so [Applause] dangerous for those who built it there's  no safer tunnel in all of Mother Russia especially if you need to get out in an  emergency so says engineer Yakov [Music] Vin Yakov thinks the problem is not the tunnel or the 880 kmh speed limit it's the Russian  drivers they are notorious in 2012 alone 28,000 people died on Russia's r

oads  that's three people every hour of every day even so journalist Vladimir bashev  has a different opinion about the tunnel he thinks it's the tunnel itself which  could be causing the problem something the tunnel Builder Yakov is quick  to defend his great work he has another insightful Theory there are just too many cars Ma so is it just heavy traffic causing these problems let's see that again sorry Yakov it looks as though the road was clear there is another theory the tunnel runs  under

the yaoa river and temperatures down here can hit- 38 de C put them together and you could  have sheets of black ice forming on the road surface essentially you've got cars flying  around and the potential for a pileup is enormous this crash does look like an icy skid so what is causing the  terrible crashes in this tunnel bad [Music] driving poor design black  ice some say the tunnel was built under an old graveyard and so  it's cursed could that be to blame you decide what's not in doubt  is t

his is the world's craziest tunnel next we're hammering Into the Heart  of New York to see the toughest tunnel unlike in Moscow here  the underground explosions are deliberate an ambitious new subway line is  under construction beneath the streets of Manhattan it's taken 1,800 tons of dynamite  to blast out 23 new stations and 50 tons of concrete each day to keep every inch of the  tunnel sealed this is the Second Avenue subway tunnel this $7 billion tunnel will connect up  the entire east side

of Manhattan 14 km long it will run all the way from Harlem down to the  financial district the east side of manhatt is totally jammed in terms of mass transit and  so the second aen Subway really completes a huge missing Gap in the New York System the team  of elite tunnelers are called sand Hogs they're led by Foreman Morgan curum originally from  gway in the west of Ireland he moved to New York 40 years ago to learn the trade of a master  tunneler now he's blasting only meters away from skysc

raper foundations it can be dang dous it  definitely can be just don't forget now we're in Manhattan so you have to be real careful  with the blasting or you could damage the build today Morgan's team  faces one of the toughest tasks of all concreting a job that has to run like clockwork 10 trucks an hour travel 16 km in  from the Bronx each one carries 7 tons tons of concrete the sand Hogs only have 40 minutes  to get concrete from the truck into the tunnel before the next fresh batch arrives a

backlog  means $2,000 in waiting time per truck and tons of spoiled concrete and that's just above  ground liquid concrete is pumped down from street level with the pressure 70 times greater  than a garden hose it flows into the tunnel and onto the walls and floor there it forms a strong  watertight shell any delay threatens the whole job there's a problem CL it fix they shut off  the pump above ground and drive wedges into the pipe to stop the concrete while  they work out what's wrong it look

s like one of the Pipelines lines carrying  liquid concrete is blocked the sandhogs have a potentially dangerous situation on  their hands the lines uh high pressure it could be uh very catastrophic Morgan  takes charge we have to blow this line out he needs to find and clear the blockage oh  okay back up he only has a few minutes to fix the problem before the concrete they've  just poured onto the tunnel wall set if it sets by the time you pour the next layer  you have what they call a coral jo

int meaning that the carrete is already set before the  new concrete comes on so you'd have a seam there where the water could come through it's  not good a delay in the pouring will create a weak Link in the wall to fix that they would  have to strip 18 tons of concrete and relay it luckily Morgan has a plan he'll  flush out the blockage using a sponge ball called a rabbit this is what we  call the rabbit it fits tight in the pipe and it cleans the pipe out completely  the rabbit is forced thro

ugh the pipe using highly pressurized air only when it emerges  from the end will they know the blockage is [Applause] clear they've broken through good pump on py pump on Turn It Up middle  problem solved the team can get back to work it was probably a bad batch of concrete  but everything is clear now and they'll just finished the pour this doesn't happen every time  just once in a while once again the Second Avenue tunnel keeps Morgan and his team on their toes  Monday Friday just another Mon

day these things happen on a Monday or a Friday never during  the week so but we're back pumping again now we'll be okay today the team concrete another  40 m of Subway tunnel but every day brings new challenges and no one knows yet when the whole  project will be finished until the final layer of concrete is poured it's Man versus the world's  toughest tunnel coming up we head deep under the Kansas prairies to find an American Doomsday  Preppers dream these are the safest tunnels on Earth we've

seen the toughest tunnel on  Earth in New York now for tunnel number eight you need nerves of Steel we're going to  the war tunnel of Vietnam they're hundreds of miles in length and they were built by the  Viet Kong The Fearsome Vietnamese resistance Army who defeated the Americans and  their allies in the Vietnam War for the Western soldiers who had to fight in  these tunnels they were the deadliest on Earth today thousands of tourists squeeze  themselves into the underground passageways they

come to see how the Viet Kong hid  from their Western enemies and moved about undetected the Viet Kong were drivers  of stealth Warfare and their vehicles were very much these underground tunnels  stretching for tens of thousands of miles across South Vietnam this vast Labyrinth  of tunnels was built with nothing but hand tools during the monsoon season vast  armies of laborers dug down into the soft clay soils and when the dry Dr season  came the tunnels hardened into a rock solid structure the

se tunnels gave the Viet Kong  a crucial element of surprise over their American enemies allowing them to creep  up at Close Quarters and launch sudden ambushes in 1966 an Australian army unit  discovered a tunnel entrance by chance and realized they had to explore it further the very  first Soldier to go down was a young officer in the Australian engineer Corps Captain Sandy  McGregor we had never been down a tunnel I decided that uh I was going to be the first one  down Sandy came from a milit

ary family and he believed it was his duty as a commanding officer  to lead from the front this photo shows the very moment he went in I got my sergeant to put my feet  together he lowered me down head first there's not many sounds there's not many sounds at all it's  like it's Eerie Blackness Sandy and the troops who followed him found that the tunnels were specially  designed with trap doors dead ends and hiding places they knew that somewhere down there enemy  troops were waiting to attack it

was scary to the extreme you know we had I deds unexploded bombs  booby traps could anything be more extreme than that there were all kinds of Hazards down in  those tunnels there were snakes and rats and things but there were also sharpened sticks  and especially the enemy was down there they knew you're coming they're waiting for you  down in the tunnels the fighting was brutal every mission was potentially lethal but then  in a tunnel complex just 16 km from from Saigon they found out why th

e Viet Kong was fighting  so hard to defend every inch of their tunnels we actually discovered the Viet Kong headquarters  in the coochi tunnels the tunnels contained the Viet Kong command post we pulled out of there  over half a million pieces of paper let alone things like ammunition and radios and all this  sort of stuff it was the biggest intelligence find of the war as they explored further they  found hospitals weapons stockpiles and food stores all hidden from view with secret exits and 

entrances it became clear that the underground war in Vietnam was unwinable during the day  Sandy would go through a tunnel and make sure it was empty and then Retreat to his Camp above  ground but at night the Viet Kong would return we heard the enemy come back into those tunnels  sometimes we can hear their voices and we think we're got to go back in there tomorrow we're  going to go back in there tomorrow that's when it gets scary terrifying memory of a brutal  underground War at 7:00 we're h

iding out in the USA to ride out the end of the world in our  safest tunnel Vietnam had its deadly passageways but this survival bunkering Kansas is the polar  opposite it has blast doors five-star living and 24/7 surveillance this nuclear missile  silo may be the safest tunnel you'll ever visit the Great Plains of Kansas flat Frozen and featureless but underground lies  a network of Forgotten tunnels and property developer Larry Hall has  bought them following the 9/11 attacks and the birth of

his first child Larry's  thoughts naturally turned to the coming apocalypse and we better to ride it  out Than This Cold War era missile silo one of the strongest structures ever  built by man this is a very heavy 2,000lb door these um teeth right here you see  they're pretty substantial um these would interlock into these grooves all along  here these welded things and it uh is a very formidable door it was designed of  course to keep a uh nuclear blast shock W now Larry Hall's missile silos ar

e the ultimate  piece of Cold War army surplus built in the' 60s to hold nuclear warheads there were 72 of  these top secret facilities scattered across the United States they housed missiles over 100 times  more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb of [Music] 1945 in 1962 a change of military strategy LED  them to be abandoned but Larry sees 21st century potential down here he is embarking upon Grand  designs Kansas style and by spending millions of he's turning this into this for people like  Larr

y it's the perfect survivalists paradise whatever flavor of catastrophe is coming our way  he's prepped for it this facility was designed as a one- siiz fits-all and you can pick your  poison about what your fears are whether it's civil unrest or a solar flare or a metor or global  climate change or an F5 tornado or an earthquake a volcanic eruption and um all of these things Larry  has everything he needs to survive underground for five long years he has a 24/7 fully functioning  control center

when Armageddon is Raging outside Larry will be watching in high definition we can  look at day Vision Night Vision we have lethal and non-lethal defensive systems here there's lower  hanging fruit than trying to uh break into this place it it it would probably end badly with any  gate Crashers kept out Larry can concentrate on keeping himself fed and watered he plans to grow  his own supply of vegetables using human waste to feed this indoor hydroponic garden he'll Farm fish  in these huge tan

ks and for everything else he has a delicious array of canned food but it's not  all about raw survival we've got a movie theater we've got an arcade for the kids we have a rock  climbing wall we have a great Resort style pool this pool offers hours of fun for all the family  and it also serves a more serious purpose it's at the top of the silo so the water also Shields the  inhabitants below from lethal nuclear particles win-win property developer Larry has built  12 luxury condos down here eac

h with space for up to 10 people it's the lap of luxury  and it's yours until the end of time or at least until the oxygen runs out the price  tag $3 million cash anyone is welcome as long as they have the money and there's  clearly a market for these condos Larry has sold all of them keeping just one back for  himself not only are we 65 ft underground but we have a luxury high-end condominium with  all the Comforts including electronic view of what's going on outside I even have a hot  cup of c

offee it's perfect so relax enjoy your skinny latte in a styrofoam cup and use your  electronic Windows to watch the world come to an [Music] end with Larry in charge this nuclear  missile silo is surely the safest tunnel in the world but buyers beware once that blast door  closes you may never be able to leave [Music] at number six it's the weirdest tunnel in China all tunnels are long straight dark  and monotonous right wrong we're going down the rabbit hole to take a trip along  the Buns tunn

el in Shanghai a psychedelic Magic Carpet Ride 647 M long this is the  weirdest tunnel in the [Music] world the Bund isn't the only tunnel in the world to  use multicolored lights but elsewhere they are used for more serious reasons 25 kilm long  the Lal tunnel in Norway is the longest road tunnel on the planet here the lighting scheme  changes regularly to keep drivers Alert in the mega city of Shanghai spectacular the light  displays form part of the city's cultural identity but beneath these 

skyscrapers lies an even more bizarre experience when it opened in 200000 the  Bund tunnel was intended as an amusement for tourists it offers a different way to get  across the hangu river from Old Shanghai to the modern Financial District of laru but you  need a banker Deep Pockets for this ride it's eight times more expensive than the ferry  the bun pedestrian tunnel is basically like the world's worst Disney ride you sit in this car  and weird lights and sound effects are blasted at you thi

s sensory overload is kept up for  a head spinning 5 minutes and the Chinese seem to love it because so far 2 million  people have taken this trip it may not be your ideal tourist destination but our weirdest  tunnel shines a symbol of the Chinese high-tech Revolution next up we'll be  staying in China to see a very different tunnel this one was made  with nothing but Blood Sweat and [Music] pickaxes in China 21st century tunnels are  full of bright lights and high-end technology but now we're c

limbing up into hernand  province's mountains to find our riskiest tunnel 1200 km away from the bright lights  of Shanghai this is the village of guyang it's perched high on a cliff and so remote  that the 350 inhabitants had nothing but a steep mountain path to the nearest Road  that is until 1972 when the villagers decided to risk their lives and carve  out this 1.6 km tunnel with their bare hands this is the Guang  tunnel the world's riskiest locked in the mountains of hernand Province  gyang

was cut off from the outside world the only way to connect up the village  was by carving diagonally through this enormous Cliff face an impossible  task right not if you're from this Village back in the 70s Shen chunfu was  a young farmer in G Yang he was tired of the 2-hour walk on this dangerous path to  take his produce to [Music] Market so he and his friends decided to build themselves  a road tunnel with no help from the outside world their only tools were hammers  chisels and the odd sti

ck of dynamite for shenon Fu worked with a dozen of  his friends each day they would carve   0:25:57.680,1193:02:47.295 [Music] a meter of the new tunnel by hanging off  the cliff and hacking at the rock [Music] [Music] face so if this was a normal construction  project you'd have huge Earth moving machines borers diggers you'd have a  whole Fleet of modern technology these guys had nothing one thing the villagers  did have was sheer [Music] determination but as they dug further along the  Cliff

face the mountain struck [Music] back [Music] carving out the mile long tunnel  took five hard years being connected to the outside world transformed The Village  but the finished Road was a serious health hazard it's dangerous enough driving through  this tunnel on the clear sunny day if you go on a day where there are downpours and  there's Mountain fog it can be extremely hazardous even in good weather cars trucks and  buses play a deadly game of chicken at every [Music] corner despite the t

ragedies here  this tunnel remains open [Music] and every year 250,000 tourists come to  admire the handc carve tunnel of [Music] guolan shen Chun Fu didn't  just build a tunnel he created a modern Wonder now at number four we're going to  Afghanistan to see the roughest tunnel on the planet the salang pass tunnel is a  product of Afghanistan's War torn History built in haste by the Soviets in 1964 it's been  left in Ruins by years of conflict but despite the damage and dangers the tunnel remain

s  a strategic route through this mountainous country winter 20 1 US troops were  advancing through Afghanistan in their war against the Taliban the salang  pass road was a key Link in their supply chain it is the only winter route  between the capital kabo and Northern Afghanistan this tunnel is very important  to the Afghans in the sense it's a Lifeline between central Asia and Afghanistan but it's  also a very key route for NATO forces in terms of supplying Soldiers with food with medicine  a

nything else they might need the salang pass road winds through a network of covered galleries  leading up through the Hindu Kush mountains and at the top is the 2.5 km tunnel itself the American  troops found the tunnel in a terrible condition but they needed to keep it open a team of army  Engineers was sent to fix this vital death trap LED by Mark Jones the conditions were incredibly  extreme when you came into the salong approach up to the tunnel which was uh over 12,000 ft at  its highest p

oint in the winter 12 to 20 ft of snow Jones was working with a team of military  engineers and hundreds of Afghan workers but he soon realized that the tunnel had a huge list of  problems the first traffic built to handle 1,000 cars a day that the tunnel was now carrying 10  times that when we first got up there there were over 400 trucks waiting to go through the tunnel  it was more than just a problem of gridlock with every vehicle that went in the tunnel became  even more dangerous there so

much dust and dirt the trucks would build up the dirt you couldn't  see adding to that you get this buildup of carbon monoxide carbon monoxide has no taste or smell but  if a simple traffic jam leaves you stuck in the tunnel the exhaust gas can kill you in minutes in  this tunnel extreme levels claimed several lives every year and the challenges facing Mark Jones  continued as drivers queued to pass through the salang tunnel they were vulnerable to an even  deadlier threat that came from the mou

ntains themselves 250 Avalanches hit this area  every year if you have an avalanche you're stuck you can't go back down  so it really becomes a battle of endurance in 2010 17 Avalanches  tore through the area in one day over 2,000 people were rescued but more  than 160 died getting traffic moving quickly through the tunnel was crucial and so Mark  Jones and his team of Engineers installed a new road surface lighting and ventilation  and a power plant to keep it all running the tunnel hasn't been

in such good repair for  decades and it truly was a team effort to make it happen Mark Jones's Tour of Duty is now  over the salang tunnel has been handed over to Afghan control control and the world's roughest  tunnel is now a vital Lifeline for this war torn country up next we're in the  Swiss Alps for our largest tunnels over 250 km of tunnel linking the  industrial heart of Northern Europe with Italy and the Mediterranean it's the gotard  tunnel Network there the world's largest but if you'

re inside them when things go wrong these  tunnels are your worst [Music] nightmare deep beneath the mountains of Switzerland the 16 km  long gotard road tunnel carries 5 million cars and half a million lorries each year it cuts  a straight path between Zurich and Milan truck driver Philip tnik must take on this tunnel every  week we have a lot of tunnels in Switzerland but this is the longest and I think for a lot  of people the extremes tunnel the darkest tunnel there's something about traveli

ng through  a tunnel that just by its nature seems unnatural you're in this strange cramped place you can't  get out it just awakens the most Primal level of fear built in 1980 the tunnel is just two  lanes wide and there's no crash barrier an accident can have catastrophic consequences  it's horrible when you have a accident here in the tunnel I remember that this was a a truck  that was burning that accident came in 2001 two trucks collided and a deadly fire broke out 1  and A2 km from the exi

t dozens of people were trapped emergency response expert beepee  Savar boroli was one of the first first to arrive all he could see was  black smoke billowing from the entrance smoke means fire fire means  no oxygen fire means toxic gassi means death beepee and his team had to go in as  he approached the fire he prepared for the worst we could feel the smelling of fire  still and there were just these rests of of the cars and there were Ash pillows and it  was the rest of burned people and uh i

t was uh a terrible aspect the rescue team pulled  11 bodies from the Gotthard Road tunnel The Goth tunnel fire was really a wakeup call  for tunnels all over the world you know you're putting vehicles through a tunnel they're  full of all kinds of combustible fuels it was a terrifying event and they've done a lot of  work since to make the tunnel safer 16 km away a safer and quicker route under the Alps is now  nearing completion the gotard base tunnel it's the deepest railway tunnel in the wor

ld dug in 2  and 1/2 km beneath the mountain peaks it's also the longest 56 km end to end it's crucial that  they learn the lessons from accidents like the gar tunnel fire at every step today senior  technician Stefan Ani is performing a test drive the the test begin this test drive comes after 14 years of  Drilling and Blasting to create the base tunnel four boring machines nearly 500 M long have  excavated over 25 million tons of rocks that's enough to build the Great pyramid five times  over

but the drilling has come at a price so far this tunnel has claimed the lives of eight  [Music] men on the rails the pressure is on for Stefan Ernie this is just the latest crucial  test for this 10 billion Euro construction project for for today's test he is aiming  for a maximum speed of 160 km per hour if he succeeds it will be  the fastest yet for this tunnel 578 59 and 160 yes they have reached their  target it's another step towards completion for the world's longest tunnel okay now we  re

ached 160 without problem so uh now we can enjoy a little bit before we start to decrease  again when it opens in 2016 the Gotthard base tunnel will be able to carry 300 trains every  day it will cut the journey time between Zurich and Milan by an hour taking passengers  and Freight right through the mountain mountains coming up next the  mightiest storm defenses in the world so far in our countdown of the world's  most extreme tunnels a Russian ringroad which doubles as an ice rink a war torn t

unnel in  need of a facelift a tunnel Network buried 2 and 1/2 km under mountain peaks and our  number two is down at drain in Japan to see the world's Mightiest tunnels they stretch  for miles around Japan's capital city but these tunnels move water not people they're  designed to combat freak typhoon floods the mightiest tunnels on the planet are Tokyo's  storm drains Japan lies under threat of Pacific typhoons when a storm makes landfall  200 km perh wind and pounding rain batter the country

the threat of  typhoons in places like Japan is Extreme sometimes you have 30 typhoons  forming in the Northwest Pacific every year Tokyo is a Sitting Duck but it has  an Ace up its sleeve a network of tunnels that swallow the flood water store it  up and then pump it out slowly it's a giant drainage system for the world's  biggest city it's staggering to think of the the volume of this thing and it looks  like something out of a science fiction movie this vast storage chamber is nicknamed  The

Underground Temple supported by 59 Titanic pillars it is over twice the size of St Paul's  Cathedral taku fukagawa is the Temple's high priest thankfully for Mr fukagawa it's  dry today but he must be ready at all times in times of flood five of Tokyo's rivers  are diverted into these water tanks each one could fit Nelson's column  inside with room to spare from the tanks the flood water flows through  this enormous passage 6 and A2 km long then it reaches the temple vast chamber  designed to ho

ld water and release it slowly it can hold enough water  to fill 140 Olympic swimming pools when the temple empties 78 pumps Propel  180 tons of water into the mighty Edo River every second thanks to this giant drain and  its Master Mr fukugawa Tokyo is safe now for tunnel number one we're  going in search of Contraband on the Mexican [Applause] border Tokyo's typhoon tunnels  may be Mighty but size doesn't always matter here authorities regularly discover state-of-the-art  Smugglers tunnels use

d to move illegal drugs over the border and into the USA in this one law  enforcement seized 14 tons of cannabis with a street value of $150 million welcome to Mexico's  Infamous drug tunnels the world world's most criminal February 2014 drug lord Hakim shorty  Gman is arrested in Mexico the alleged Kingpin of the infamous Sinaloa cartel he has dubbed  the assama bin Laden of the drug world it is claimed that he had a network of secret roots  that helped him evade capture and move his drugs into

the United States tunnels built by a  team of Professional Engineers and equipped with lights and ventilation these tunnels were built  for one thing only to get drugs across the US border 9:00 a.m. the US Frontier outside San Diego border patrol agent Lance lenoir's job  is to seek out and Destroy smuggling tunnels today he's on patrol at a Tunnel built  by the US authorities but still used by Smugglers the tunnel that we're looking  at right now actually starts in Mexico and it's a storm drai

n it's completely open  from the Mexican side all the way to what we see right here this tunnel is 1.2 M wide and  180 M long next up Tiana plenty of spiders in when I can already tell uh unfortunately  most of the time they're usually black widows L slir has been doing this job for  15 years he knows exactly what he's looking for Bingo this is what we're looking for when we  inspect these storm drains this right here it looks like someone has tried to cut right  through the wall of the tunnel t

o avoid the heavy steel gate at the end so what they'll  do do a standard square cut break this up in there and then they begin the process of  actually removing the dirt and they tunnel out vertically today's storm drain inspection  has been a success Lance Lenoir has spotted the preparations for a smuggling attempt and he  can now close it down but staying ahead of the drug smugglers is an enormous challenge because  they're not just hacking into existing tunnels they're building their own sha

fts running for  hundreds of meters and avoiding miles of razor wire thousands of Border guards and billions of  dollars of security the guys who built these are pretty tough and pretty gutsy and it shows  you how valuable the drug trade is to these gangs because they're willing to put themselves at  Great risk and great expense to get these tunnels built the drug trade in the US is  worth over $200 billion per year it's no wonder drug Barons want to build  build these tunnels to get a piece of

the action so far the authorities have  sealed off nearly 150 of them but it's an endless game of Captain  Mouse as one tunnel closes another [Music] opens highly illegal but worth millions of dollars these drug tunnels are the  world's most [Music] extreme [Music]