Two teenagers were rescued from the catacombs beneath Paris on Wednesday after getting lost in the pitch-black tunnels of the underground burial ground for three days.
The two boys, aged 16 and 17, were taken to hospital and were being treated for hypothermia after being found by search teams and rescue dogs in the early hours of the morning.
‘It was thanks to the dogs that we found them,’ a spokesman for the Paris fire service said at the end of the four-hour operation.
A network of around 150 miles (250 kilometres) of underground tunnels forms a maze beneath Paris, with only a small section open to the public at an official visitors’ site in southern Paris.
Entering the other galleries has been against the law since 1955, but daredevil school children, explorers and alternative partygoers are known to access them through secret entrance points.
Human remains started to be transferred to the former underground quarries of Paris in 1786, when the main cemetery of Paris – the Cemetery of Innocents – was closed for public health reasons.
The catacombs became a tourist attraction after being opened to the public in the late 18th Century.
From 1809 on, the catacombs were rearranged into organized galleries, with piled bones forming walls and pillars, and even some artistic shapes made of femurs and skulls.
Following vandalism, the underground cemetery was shut to the public in September 2009 and then reopened in December that year.
The bones of approximately six million people can be found in the Catacombs.
The ambient temperature in the dank narrow passageways is about 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit).
It was not clear who had raised the alarm about the missing teenagers or why they got lost.
The operator of the Catacombs museum, a popular attraction where the queues are sometimes several hours long, stressed that no-one had ever got lost in the 1.25-miles (two kilometre) of tunnels open to the public.
THE PARIS CATACOMBS: A CEMETERY BELOW THE CITY A by-product of the early development of Paris, the catacombs were subterranean quarries which were established as limestone was extracted deep underground to build the city above. However, a number of streets collapsed as the quarries weakened parts of the city’s foundations. Repairs and reinforcements were made and the network went through several transformations throughout history.However it wasn’t until the 18th century that the catacombs became known as the Empire of the Dead when they became the solution to overcrowding in the city’s cemeteries. The catacombs in Paris were subterranean quarries which were established as limestone was extracted deep underground to build the city above (pictured)The number of dead bodies buried in Paris’s cemeteries and beneath its churches was so great that they began breaking through the walls of people’s cellars and causing serious health concerns.So the human remains were transferred to the underground quarries in the early 1780s. There are now more than 6million people underground.From 1809 on, the catacombs were rearranged into organized galleries, with piled bones forming walls and pillars, and even some artistic shapes made of femurs and skulls. The space was the perfect solution to ease overcrowding in cemeteries but it presented disadvantages elsewhere.It is the reason there are few tall buildings in Paris; large foundations cannot be built because the catacombs are directly under the city’s streets. A network of around 150 miles (250 kilometres) of underground tunnels forms a maze beneath Paris, with only a small section still open to the public at an official visitors’ site in southern ParisThe tunnels also played their part in the Second World War. Parisian members of the French Resistance used the winding tunnels And German soldiers also set up an underground bunker in the catacombs, just below the 6th arrondissement. A network of around 150 miles (250 kilometres) of underground tunnels forms a maze beneath Paris, with only a small section still open to the public at an official visitors’ site in southern Paris. Entering the other galleries has been against the law since 1955, but daredevil school children, explorers and alternative partygoers are known to access them through secret entrance points. Following vandalism, the underground cemetery was shut to the public in September 2009 and then reopened in December that year.
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