Underground life.

Tourists in the pavilion Kuha Karuhas cave Phraya Nakhon, in the national park Khao Sam Roi Yot, 300 kilometers south of Bangkok, Thailand, December 5, 2010. The pavilion was built in 1890 on the occasion of the visit to the cave of King Chulalongkorn, the grandfather of the present King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Caves and tunnels have always been part of human history. Over the millennia, we have learned to skillfully use these underground shelters and passages, and now people are digging the ground for several hundred reasons. For example, to find the material and cultural values, dig mines and make the archaeological site.
Man uses the cave for storage, entertainment and effective shelter from natural and man-made disasters. And as our planet becomes more populated and narrow national boundaries, tunnels give us access to the movement, and even smuggling.



Visitor in the tunnel NEAT Gotthard Base. This is the longest railway tunnel of 57 km in length, crossing the Alps, to be commissioned in late 2017.



Participants of the first underground cycling "Mole race» («Mole Race») in the catacombs near Budapest, Hungary on February 6. Hundreds of cyclists took part in the race, driving a route length of 1,200 meters. The system mines the length of 30 km has been used for centuries for the production of stones for the construction of the Hungarian capital.



Visitors at the natural entrance to the Carlsbad Caverns National Park near Carlsbad, New Mexico on December 18, 2010. More than 400,000 people a year visit these caves to look at the huge stalactites and stalagmites, soda straws thin, transparent curtains and ponds adorn the main attraction of the park - a large room.



Hundreds of cave formations decorate a large room Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. Adventurers can choose several routes of the beaten track is accompanied by park rangers, who will guide you through narrow passages through the current in the river stones and down the ropes and ladders.



Metro Station Puhung at a depth of more than 100 meters underground in Pyongyang, North Korea. The station also serves as a refuge against nuclear weapons.



Israeli archaeologist Annette Nagar in 2000-year-old tunnel under Jerusalem's Old City on the western side of the Western Wall. Israeli archaeologists have finished work in the tunnel, which began in 2004. The tunnel begins at the site near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City walls.



Tourists in the national park are floating on the waters of Puerto Princesa underground river in Palawan, western Philippines, on 13 February. 8, 2-kilometer-long underground park was included in the World Heritage List UNESCO December 4, 1999 for its ecological value and limestone formations that constrain underground river, is considered to be the longest in the world.



Hospital beds in the parking lot in an underground shelter Rambam hospital in the northern Israeli city of Haifa on 31 May. Vault filled with unique filters and air-conditioning system to protect against biological and chemical weapons, accommodates two thousand beds will be opened in August 2012. It will be the world's largest underground hospital.



Pakistani forces inspect the wreckage at the site of the explosion in the tunnel of double in Kohat January 29. The attacks took place late at night on January 28 at the tunnel that connects the main town Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.



Working with test drills in the mine, which will be tested for suitability for use as a permanent storage of nuclear waste in a salt dome near the German town of Gorleben July 2nd. The mine is located at a depth of 840 meters, and its length is 6, 5 km away.



French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni look at the wall paintings during a visit to the caves of Lascaux in the day of the 70th anniversary of its opening in Montignak.



Egyptian boy with rabbits, donated them to the Palestinians, in an underground tunnel linking the southern Gaza Strip and Egypt, 21 November 2010. The Egyptians and the Palestinians carry the network of tunnels that once served as the main artery for the supply of goods from Gaza.



Researchers from the Lebanese Association of speleologists descend into the cave to celebrate Christmas with children and friends in a cave in the village Rvayss, at a depth of almost two thousand meters under the ground in the Lebanese mountains north of Beirut.



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The driver in the newly opened subway line in Beijing December 30, 2010. Beijing opened five new subway lines, so that the total length of track reached 336 kilometers, to cope with the ever growing population of the Chinese capital.



The Indians on the background of fire from an underground coal fire in the village of Bokapahari, in the state of Jharkhand, where living and working community of workers of coal mines.



Shakhtar against the huge drill machine to break the wall and connect the two tunnels at a construction site on the Gotthard Base Tunnel. The project consists of two parallel tunnels, the length of each of which is 57 km away.



Pakistani miners emerge from the tunnel during a rescue mission in a mine in the district Soranzh province of Baluchistan. As a result of an explosion caused the collapse of the mine killed seven miners and trapped 41.



Barrels made from an ancient recipe rum buried in the vault of Santa Teresa in the village of El Consejo del Estado de Aragua, 60 km west of Caracas, April 8. Venezuela produces 32 million liters of rum per year, of which 40% remains in the country, and the rest is exported, mainly to Spain and Italy.



The workers are working on the construction of a highway tunnel in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China. The tunnel is part of the unfinished 23-kilometrvoogo Taiga highway linking Taiyuan and Gutszyao.



Mexican military in the tunnel discovered in Tijuana. According to local media, authorities found smugglers tunnel connecting the border city of Tijuana to the United States. The tunnel is actively used, as there was built ventilation system and pave the electricity and there were rails to transport drugs.



The man with the torch visits the dungeon, before the former headquarters of the supporters of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in Benghazi.



Illegal miner in a mine dug in search of gold in the camp for the miners near El Callao in the southern Venezuelan state of Bolivar. The cave has killed seven people.



A small boat dock on the lake at the bottom of the salt mine of Turda in Romania. Salina Turda - one of the most important salt mines in Transylvania, known since ancient times, but powered only in the Romanesque period. Mine was mentioned in official documents as early as the middle of the 13th century, when it was proposed to the leaders of the Transylvanian Catholic Church.



20-year-old Anil Basnet with a cart loaded with coal at the time of its extraction from rat hole in a tunnel at a depth of 90 meters, near the village in the district Latirke Dzhaintiya Hills, India. Miners Dzhaintii Hills, located in the north-eastern state of Meghalaya, down to a depth of slippery and shaky wooden stairs. Children and adults squeeze into rat holes in thousands of private mines, producing coal by hand or with primitive tools and without the proper equipment. Workers receive up to $ 150 per week.



The archeologist cleans a skeleton, which five thousand years, during excavations in the sediments of the mountain range of Atapuerca in Burgos, northern Spain on 25 June 2010. The skeleton belongs to a girl buried in the cave of El Mirador in the Bronze Age.



Pilgrims in the cave called Minas de Nuestro Senor de Esquipulas, where according to legend, the Black Christ appeared in Guatemala. Black Christ or Cristo Negro - title of the painting of the crucified Jesus in the Basilica Eskuipulas worshiped by millions of believers in Central America.