A city inside the earth
Between 1964 and 1973, the limestone karst mountains of Houaphan Province, Laos, concealed a hidden city. This subterranean complex was the headquarters of the Pathet Lao, the communist revolutionary movement, during a conflict known as the Secret War. To escape a relentless nine-year bombing campaign by the U.S. Air Force, up to 23,000 people moved their entire society underground. The United States dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos, making it the most heavily bombed country per capita in history. This aerial assault equated to a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, around the clock, for nine years.
The Pathet Lao's response was a feat of military geography and engineering. They occupied an extensive network of 480 natural caves, transforming them into a functioning state. The caves contained everything needed for a society to endure: a hospital, a school, government offices, markets, bakeries, and even a theatre for entertainment and weddings. Farmers adapted by tending their fields only at night to avoid air raids. Important leaders had their own designated caves. Kaysone Phomvihane, the future prime minister, had a cave with Politburo meeting rooms and an emergency bunker. Prince Souphanouvong, the "Red Prince," had a command center and, after the 1973 ceasefire, used his civil engineering background to design a house just outside his cave. These were shelters and the nerve center of a revolution, hidden within the rock of the land itself.