Beneath the streets of Kolkata lies a network of tunnels most residents have never seen. They were built during the Second World War as air raid shelters, designed to protect the city’s population from bombing raids during the Pacific theatre of the war.
What’s down there today
Some sections have since been opened for heritage tours, offering a rare look at wartime-era engineering hidden in plain sight beneath a modern city. Much of the network, however, remains sealed off and unexplored, its full extent not widely documented.
A different side of the city
Kolkata’s more visible history — colonial architecture, tram lines, centuries-old markets — gets most of the attention. This is the version of the city’s history you have to go looking for.