THE CATACOMBS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20648, 24 June 1935, Page 5

THE CATACOMBS.

Where Paris Will Hide During Raids. A GRUESOME DUNGEONLONDON, May 15. I have just concluded a tour of Paris’s future bombproof shelter —the catacombs under the city that are to be developed and strengthened as refuges . for the population - in case of war (writes the Paris correspondent of a London paper). . At a depth of 60ft to 90ft this labyrinth of tunnels and disused stone quarries extends for a distance of 433 miles, in all and covers a total area of 861 acres. Room for 600,000. Over 600,000 people could be housed at once in this vast underground cellar, which the recently-appointed National Air Defence Commission' has taken over. The main difficulty lies in building sufficient entrances—there is at present only one—large enough for the population to bolt underground in numbers like rabbits at a given signal. The scheme in hand provides for the piercing of new entrances —like those of the underground railway stations—at strategic centres of the city. For years these quarries, whence the stones that went to build the greater part of old Paris, including the Cathedral of Notre Dame, were cut, have been left untouched save for periodic visits by engineers watching for fissures which may endanger buildings above. Only a small part—about threequarters of a mile near the entrance—has been known to the general public as the “ catacombs.” Here, the bones of six million people taken from old cemeteries and excavated during building work, have been stacked in rows along the sides of the quarry tunnels. An Eerie Vault. Accompanying a municipal engineer through this’ eerie dungeon I flashed

my candle on the skull and thigh bones of Madame de Pompadour, on the remains of Roman and Gallic warriors, British and Scottish soldiers who fell in the medieval wars, and on many victims of the Terror. “ As we are now so you one day will be ”• reads one of the many grim legends staring every few yards from the seemingly unending wall of bones. In this gruesome place it is intended that women and children should seek safety—if need be in the middle of the night—in case of aerial attack. Although plans are still at the embryonic stage preliminary work will include the strengthening and buttressing of the walls and roofs of the caverns, providing for the eventual storage of food and lighting arrangements.