Friday, 30 March 2012

Living Underground a Reality?

We explored what living underground offers and we found that it is not as bad as it sounds. Living underground resolves various problems that humans face today such as energy efficiency, comfortable temperature, hideout from extreme temperatures, life without noise, natural shelter from wars, tornados and hurricanes. Two problems that we stumbled across were flooding and of course lack of sunlight. Flooding can be solved with water pumps, but it seems that is impossible to penetrate sun rays through the ground.

There is a town in South Australia called Coober Pedy, where people found that living underground can be great alternative for their needs. There are times when temperatures in Coober Pedy reach an amazing high of 43 degrees Celsius (109 F). These temperatures are very uncomfortable for a normal human being and can lead to various skin diseases. The people here try and avoid the sun by living underground during this period.

This area is commonly referred to as the opal capital of the world. One finds homes, churches and even hotels in the disused shaft mines.

The area, as expected, has become a tourist attraction. People travel long distances to come and see this amazing place. The town relies heavily on the income that they get from tourism just as much as they rely on the income that they get from opal mining.

The area also boasts of being the only place that has got an underground bar. So for those that love drinking beer you will have an amazing experience drinking it from below. Interestingly there is a underground Serbian Orthodox church in Coober Pedy. Serbian miners built it for their own religions needs.


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