William "The Hackney Mole Man" Lyttle a retired electrical engineer spent most of his last 40 years compulsively digging elaborate tunnels and caves underneath his home in east London. By the time the local authority could stop him, the hollow shafts were endangering the street and adjacent homes. He was ordered to pay the £408,000 so that the holes could be filled in. William squirrelled away a surprising amount of equipment including the three cars and a boat which were all found under the house. In July 2012 the refurbished, supposedly structurally sound home was placed at auction and drew a winning bid of about £1.1 million.
On March 3, police in Kantale, Sri Lanka, found the body of Janaka Basnayake, 24, who with the help of friends had buried himself in a 10-foot-deep trench for an attempt to set a "world record" for the longest time buried alive. Clearly, his 6 1/2 hours underground was too ambitious. A press report noted that it was "unclear" whether an "official" record exists in this category.
Developer Larry Hall is already almost sold out of the upscale doomsday units he is building in an abandoned underground Cold War-era Atlas-F missile silo near Salina, Kansas. He told a reporter in April that his 14-story structure would house seven floors of apartments (£1 million to £2 million each, cash up front), with the rest devoted to dry food storage, filtered-water tanks and an indoor farm, which would raise fish and vegetables to sustain residents for five years. The 9-foot-thick concrete walls (built to protect rockets from a Soviet nuclear attack) would be buttressed by entrance security to ward off the savages who were not wise enough to prepare against famine, meteors, nuclear war and the like. Hall said he expects to be sold out this year and begin work on another of the three silos he has options to buy.
Remember - don't try this on your boat!
Later...
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