Environmental protests to highlight climate change have seen motorways blockaded by protestors lying in the road and soup thrown over a priceless Van Gogh in an art gallery.
But back in 1997, one creative but dangerous protest that took place at Manchester Airport saw activists become trapped deep underground. The protest was in opposition to Manchester Airport building a second runway and lasted six months.
Activists had occupied a camp situated on the proposed ground where the runway was to be built. It was there that the protestors moved in for the long haul, digging a tunnel network deep underground.
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While many of the campaigners took to occupying trees on the proposed site, four activists burrowed underground in a hand-built tunnel dubbed the 'cakehole'. The tunnel was believed to be one of the most complex built at a protest, with campaigners claiming it went 50ft deep and its defences included bolted boilerplate doors.
Another of the tunnels, dubbed The Worm, was reported in the Daily Mirror as a foot high by a foot wide - "Just enough for a slim man to squeeze through head first with arms outstretched."
With a ventilation pipe supplying air and enough supplies for six weeks, the activists were dubbed 'human moles' by the press. Photographs of the tunnels show how protestors had reinforced them with wooden panels and concrete but with barely enough room for one adult to crawl through at a time.
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At the end of The Worm, lay a 3ft high "coffin-shaped chamber". This is where a number of the activists lived underground, eating tins of cold spaghetti and dried fruit.
Daily Mirror photographer, Frank Parker, was reportedly the first outsider to enter the tunnels. Describing them, he told The Mirror: "It's like being buried alive. It's very difficult to move, extremely claustrophobic and takes about 10 minutes to reach the end.
"Then you drop headfirst into the sleeping chamber where there's just enough room to sit up." He added: "There's no noise from the outside world - it feels as though there's no one else alive.
"When the lights go out, it's as dark as the grave. I can't believe people are brave enough to live down there for so long."
Using head torches and candles to illuminate their subterranean world, protestors continued to hole in as an eviction began above ground with digging operations by bailiffs. By May 31, 1997, four months after the activists occupied the site, the Daily Mirror reported there were 30 protestors still in the camp, which consisted of "seven treehouses and four tunnels".
Removing the protestors was proving incredibly difficult with one female activist boobytrapping one of the trapdoors which, if opened, would have throttled her by way of a a makeshift "noose" which had been tied around her neck. However, the eviction team of tunnellers had dug around the surrounding area and cut the noose allowing the activist to be freed unharmed.
As operations to remove the last of the activists from the tunnels continued, the protest came to an end on June 17, 1997. One 24-year old protestor had become trapped for five hours after a partial collapse of the 'cakehole' tunnel.
The last remaining campaigner had spent 17-nights in the tunnel. Now alongside one of the professional tunnellers trying to evict him, the delicate operation to bring the two men to the surface commenced.
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Following his rescue, the protestor is quoted as saying in the Aberdeen Press and Journal on June 17: "One of the tunnellers came in and said it had collapsed. I didn't believe him at first, I thought it was a bluff to get me out."
He added: "They passed an oxygen meter in for us to monitor the air quality and we had communication with them all the time. We were perfectly safe."
The activist praised the tunnellers, who got to know the protestors well as they evicted them from the maze on the site. "I can't praise them enough," he said.
"They were excellent. They did everything for my safety for my safety they could have done."
At the end of the eviction operations, it was reported that more than 160 arrests had been made. Randall Hibbert, Cheshire Under-Sheriff and the man tasked with overseeing the eviction operation, said the 'cakehole' tunnel was of a complexity never seen before at a protest.
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He told the Aberdeen Press and Journal that the tunnel had 10 doors, mostly made of steel, set in heavy concrete. He added: "It was an engineering feat in that sense."
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