Almost no one ever makes a conscious decision to just pack all of their belongings and relocate to an underground home. It is therefore saddening to hear of places where this is the people’s plight.
These locations sometimes have as much as thousands of people forming an entire underground community. They usually choose this life because they are homeless and have few options available.
At other times, they are forced to live underground due to circumstances beyond their control or because they cannot afford aboveground homes. Here are seven of these places where people have their homes underground.
1. The Endangered Homeless People Who Live In Bogota’s Sewers
In Colombia, the homeless people who live in the sewers of Bogota are hunted and murdered by dedicated death squads that have been active since the 1990s. Back then, homeless people lived on the streets. However, after many of them were killed, they fled to sewers filled with faeces, garbage, and rats.
The targeted killings are the handiwork of rich Colombian businessmen who consider the homeless as nuisances who must be eradicated. To achieve this, they commissioned death squads consisting of former soldiers and police officers.
2. The Orphans Of Bucharest
The sewers of Bucharest, Romania, are home to hundreds of people. They are mostly orphans who fled into the sewers as children when a change of government led to the closure of their orphanages in 1989.
They live in the midst of filth and garbage. Many do not have beds and lie on rotting clothes. They rarely have anything to eat and have to scavenge from the trash. As with any community ravaged by poverty, a lot of the residents are drug abusers.
3. The Homeless People Who Live Under Manhattan
There are tens of thousands of homeless people living in New York. Some live inside a 4-kilometre-long (2.5 mi) Amtrak tunnel beneath Riverside Park in Manhattan. The initial residents moved there in 1980 when the tunnel was first abandoned. In 1991, they became homeless again when Amtrak began to reuse the tunnel. Later, many individuals returned to live in the nooks and crannies inside.
4. The Tunnel People Of Las Vegas
Between 200 and 300 people are estimated to live inside the storm drain tunnels below Las Vegas. Homeless people moved there soon after the tunnels were built in the 1990s. But no one seemed to notice them until 2002 when girlfriend killer Timmy “T.J.” Weber fled there while trying to escape from the police.
5. The Homeless Orphans Who Live In Moscow’s Sewers
As of 2002, about 50,000 homeless children were estimated to be living on the streets of Moscow. Many were drug addicts and glue sniffers who survived by stealing, begging, and prostituting themselves. Most escaped from state-run orphanages where living conditions were terrible.
The children actually live on the streets. But they flee into the sewers during the harsh Russian winter when temperatures can drop below zero. Many freeze to death during the winter.
6. The Underground Migrant Town In Moscow
In 2011, police in Moscow busted 110 people living in an “underground town.” Originally built as a bomb shelter, the town was directly under a factory that produced blades, needles, and safety pins. The residents were illegal migrants working at the factory.
7. Lots Of Syrians Are Living Underground To Escape Air Strikes
War is destructive. As Syrians have learned during their years-long civil war, an entire house can be reduced to rubble in the wink of an eye. Many Syrian citizens now live underground, especially when their towns are under attack. Some stay in their basements, while others stay in bunkers and bomb shelters which they dug under their homes.
