This Is the Town Where People Live Underground – Coober Pedy | World's Most Extreme

this is kuberpedi the opel mining capital of the world [Music] parts of cuba seem like an ordinary town but there's more to this place than meets the eye because of kuberpg's 2 500 inhabitants [Music] half live underground there are over a hundred of these subterranean homes dug into the sandstone bedrock even the churches are on the down low why to escape the outback's brutal climate if you like to live in extremes this is a place to be nice and cold in winter like down to one degree and in summer where it gets up to around the 45 mark it's one extreme to the other that's why we like to live in an underground home because it's always a constant temperature around 22 degrees here an upside down life is normal we come home from school do our homework do our chores and then dad would press a jackhammer in your hand and say get cracking we're making another bedroom we grew up literally with a pick and shovel we were born with it just about whilst the subterranean temperature remains a comfy 22 degrees all year round [Music] ventilation shafts allow air to breeze through the dugouts so they don't get too stuffy and it's not just comfy it's low impact living because much of what little power the dugouts need comes from a solar array and wind farms outside of town oh and it's also pretty stress-free you can build anything you like because you can design anything you like there's no rules and regulations on how you design your home there has been incidences where they did break through into the neighbor's place more than once that was back in the days when the measuring tape must have been written in in some other language or something building your new extension can bring unexpected benefits building your houses it's still opal field so you always got a chance to find a bit of opal i know a hotel in town which they decided to extend a few more rooms and there was a nice pocket of shells which gave them of nearly 1.5 million in in assets so they're pretty happy with their new extension kuberpedi's entire history has been about digging holes the idea of living underground started over a hundred years ago with the miners who slept in their mine shafts whilst they searched for their fortune surpassed by tourism the opal mining industry has dwindled in recent years but it's left its mark on the land every one of those little piles of sand has got a hole next to it they estimate there's over two million of them and someone's been down those holes looking for opal they build out underneath so any of this ground could collapse when you lose your footing you just slide straight into it and they go down some can go down 80 to 100 feet you can usually tell how deep it is by dropping a little rock down it [Music] and that one's about 60 feet over the years there's been some rumors that people have been dropped down holes there's millions of holes out there who knows who's down any of them even if mining has moved on this town's underground way of life has stuck you

Channel: Channel 4 Documentaries

Views: 276,583

Rating: 4.8804278 out of 5

Keywords: Channel 4, All 4, Docson4, Channel 4 Docs, worlds most extreme, worlds most extreme channel 4, worlds most extreme all4, worlds most extreme uderground, worlds most extreme coober pedy, coober pedy, coober medy mines, coober pedy living underground, coober pedy australia, coober pedy underground city, coober pedy opals, worlds most extreme towns, living underground, austrlaia living underground, australia weird towns, weird towns

Id: ywBwXyF1UuI

Length: 4min 19sec (259 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 04 2018