The Town That Moved Underground

What if the only way to survive the heat was to live underground? Coober Pedy sits in the middle of the Australian outback, 846 km from the nearest big city. Summer temperatures often go above 40°C, and the record is 48.3°C. So many residents simply moved underground. Their homes are dug into hillsides and stay at around 23°C all year without air conditioning. The town even has underground churches and an underground hotel. In this episode, you’ll spend a day in the desert. You’ll find out why people came here in the first place (opals, first found in 1915 by a 14-year-old boy), how a town with no rivers or lakes gets its water, why there’s a golf course with no grass, and what to do if your car breaks down in the desert. The characters in this story are composites. The town, the history and the numbers are real. 💬 Could you live underground? Tell us which room you’d dig first. 📚 Sources: Coober Pedy, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_... State Library of South Australia, SA Memory — https://www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/p... The Lead South Australia — https://theleadsouthaustralia.com.au/... #CooberPedy #Australia #Outback #UndergroundTown #Documentary