Mysterious labyrinth under Rome

The zigzag tunnels under the Italian city of Rome have been recorded as maps to avoid the risk of collapsing above structures.

Mysterious tunnels at the foot of Rome - (Photo: Sotterranei di Roma)

The complex labyrinth below the streets of Italian capital is not strange to the indigenous people.

Rome was built on volcanic rock, and the first engineers of the city took advantage of this type of stone because they were very hard and easily cut into blocks.

However, volcanic rocks also wear out over time.

In 2011, 44 structures or street sections collapsed into these tunnels, and this number increased to 77 and 83 cases respectively in 2012 and 2013.

Scientist Giuseppina Kysar Mattietti of George Mason University and colleagues at the Cave Research Center in Rome are conducting a project to map underground tunnels in an effort to minimize similar crash accidents.

According to Fox News, they use hand-drawn 3-dimensional mapping techniques to model the labyrinth, with many seriously degraded passages.