Top 3 underground documentaries underline the dangers of going inside the earth

Whether it’s going underground for work or pleasure, there are always inherent dangers in venturing into the bowels of the Earth. In RTD’s series of underground documentaries, we explore the beauty and cruelty of the hidden depths.

1. Hearts of Coal

In the documentary, James Brown goes underground to experience what it’s like to work at the coalface and understand the everyday danger. It’s an opportunity for the Russian Mine Rescue Service to perform an exercise, bringing him back to the surface. The team have had to work at many tragedies, and bringing miners out alive from a disaster is their only goal. With such vast coal reserves in the Kuzbass Region, scientists are working on ways to make it less polluting.

2. Undermined

The film looks at the once illegal practice of sending children down mines. In Bolivia, children who are no more than infants are the breadwinners. Working in dark and dangerous conditions, they take on back-breaking work hewing ore. When the government wanted to set the working-age to 14, child workers took to the streets in protest. It’s now legal for a child of 10 to be employed in full-time work, and the child workers union wants the age even lower.

3. Mistress of the Cave

There is a legend of a spirit living in the flooded Orda Cave near the city of Perm in Russia. Underwater photographers want to recreate the spirit in a shoot for a magazine. The shoot is extremely dangerous in the icy cold waters of the cave system that runs for over 5 kilometres. Once at the ice grotto, the team has little time to get its pictures as the conditions are so intense.