Beware the Mole Man!

In advance of a conference on natural disasters this week in Kobe, the United Nations is warning city-makers to...beware what lies beneath! Okay, so they're probably not flacking the kind of eldritch horrors that our friends in the Fantastic Four dealt with in their very first issue, but according to this article from the BBC they are concerned about concentrations of subterranean development in the same places that get hit with tsunamis and earthquakes.

3 minute read

January 14, 2005, 9:34 PM PST

By Anonymous


In advance of a conference on natural disasters this week in Kobe, the United Nations is warning city-makers to...beware what lies beneath! Okay, so they're probably not flacking the kind of eldritch horrors that our friends in the Fantastic Four dealt with in their very first issue, but according to this article from the BBC they are concerned about concentrations of subterranean development in the same places that get hit with tsunamis and earthquakes.

The [United Nations University] experts say growing urban land pressure is making it increasingly attractive to find new subterranean space for subways, shopping malls, car parks and other needs.



But Dr Srikantha Herath of the UNU says studies of potential natural disaster risks are often neglected.



He said: "The concentration of people and wealth in such underground spaces is expanding and merits careful examination.



"Such facilities in many areas have not been used sufficiently long to be exposed to various types of extreme hazard events of low frequencies.



"Modelling a variety of catastrophic events is essential for building contingencies into underground infrastructure designs, including evacuations and the emergency containment and transport of flood waters, for example."





So much of interest here. First of all, the phrase "extreme hazard events of low frequencies." One thing the Asian tsunami reminded us of, or should have reminded us of, is that thousand-year-storms never matter unless you're alive when they hit. That is, you can build to probabilities of failure, but when something serious enough happens -- tsunami, earthquake, asteroid -- if you didn't build to withstand that, you look like a shmuck.



That's especially true if your exposure to failure is massive, even if the odds of that failure are low. The UN says that most of the world's megacities are on the water, and built like crap. That's a rough paraphrase of a couple decades of work on megacities, of course, but the point is, the thousand-year storm of 1000 years ago didn't hurt as many people as it would today. More human beings are in harm's way, and that should perhaps change the calculus with which we think about hazard events and low frequencies.



But more proximately, I've been thinking for a while that subterreanizing critical infrastructure might be a good goal for every city. Boston's Central Artery Project, colloquially known as the Big Dig, seemed like a fantastic idea to me. I've lived in Boston twice, once when the Big Dig was just something people were arguing about, and then again when it was almost complete. Both times, despite the almost dutiful corruption, budget overages, and controversies about routes and features, the fundamental notion of returning the Hub to a pre-highway state of nature had a lot of appeal. Anyone who ever had to dodge traffic to get from Haymarket to the North End will probably agree.



Boston has some disaster vulnerabilities, though. As a northeastern city, it's always looking down the barrel of a quake in the Atlantic, or a hurricane that makes it far north. It's also one of the US' major ports for liquid natural gas, which means there's often millions of gallons of high explosive sitting in tanks in the harbor (I'm not giving anything away here; LNG and seaports are a known homeland security problem). But if you put your freeways and mass transit underground, those are the places that flood in an "extreme hazard event," and carry that water places it wouldn't otherwise have gone.



Time to fine-tune those disaster simulations again.


portrait of professional woman

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

Cover CM Credits, Earn Certificates, Push Your Career Forward

Logo for Planetizen Federal Action Tracker with black and white image of U.S. Capitol with water ripple overlay.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker

A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

July 16, 2025 - Diana Ionescu

Green vintage Chicago streetcar from the 1940s parked at the Illinois Railroad Museum in 1988.

Chicago’s Ghost Rails

Just beneath the surface of the modern city lie the remnants of its expansive early 20th-century streetcar system.

July 13, 2025 - WTTV

Blue and silver Amtrak train with vibrant green and yellow foliage in background.

Amtrak Cutting Jobs, Funding to High-Speed Rail

The agency plans to cut 10 percent of its workforce and has confirmed it will not fund new high-speed rail projects.

July 14, 2025 - Smart Cities Dive

Worker in yellow safety vest and hard hat looks up at servers in data center.

Ohio Forces Data Centers to Prepay for Power

Utilities are calling on states to hold data center operators responsible for new energy demands to prevent leaving consumers on the hook for their bills.

July 18 - Inside Climate News

Former MARTA CEO Collie Greenwood standing in front of MARTA HQ with blurred MARTA sign visible in background.

MARTA CEO Steps Down Amid Citizenship Concerns

MARTA’s board announced Thursday that its chief, who is from Canada, is resigning due to questions about his immigration status.

July 18 - WABE

Rendering of proposed protected bikeway in Santa Clara, California.

Silicon Valley ‘Bike Superhighway’ Awarded $14M State Grant

A Caltrans grant brings the 10-mile Central Bikeway project connecting Santa Clara and East San Jose closer to fruition.

July 17 - San José Spotlight