All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S08E11.Death.In.Paradise.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Tom ward (narrates):
An idyllic pacific island

that claimed thousands of lives.

They were angry

and they were fighting harder
than they'd ever fought before.

A Russian bastion

that turned in to a
vital centre of healing.

This place was armed for
war against enemy ships

but it's gone down in history

for a battle against a very
different kind of enemy.

An imperialist prison in Romania

which became a
hot bed of revolution.

Getting sent here was
a perfect opportunity

for a young communist activist.

And the remote complex
in Chile built on treachery.

They were minding
their own business

and they trusted this person

and in the end,
he betrayed them.

(Theme music)

Decaying relics.

Ruins of lost worlds.

Sites haunted by the past,

their secrets waiting
to be revealed.

(Grim music)

Peleliu, a tiny island
in the western pacific,

its tranquillity at odds
with a hostile history.

It's this beautiful coral island,
covered in jungle palms.

But the creeping vegetation

conceals remains of an
ominous infrastructure.

There's, even now,
the debris of warfare.

Tanks, amphibious tractors,
guns and gun emplacements.

You notice that what
looks to be an airstrip

has been carved
out of the jungle.

And below ground there's more.

A closer look reveals quite
a lot of ravines and hollows

almost dotted with caves.

And in them you can see
evidence of past occupation,

the archaeology of war.

This place was known
for a time as 'hell on earth'.

Des matsutaro
is a local historian

whose ancestors witnessed
the destruction unleashed here.

The site was devastated

beyond any one of my
people's imaginations

'cause we've never seen
destruction like this in our, our lives.

The airstrip cutting
through the heart

of this island is the first
clue to what went on here.

Here we've got an island
that's relatively low in form

and it has some areas
which are flat enough

to construct an airfield

and so it became a
very strategic point

in this part of the pacific.

Next to the airfield
stands a distinctive ruin

which looks like some
kind of control centre

but it wasn't the local
people running the operation.

There's a headquarters building,

very much in the
Japanese imperial style,

very grand in size,
clearly this was a place

that was gonna harbour
a lot of Japanese naval

and military personnel.

Not only was it a
place for them to,

to do their work,
there was areas that

were living quarters
that they had here.

This building also
has a nerve centre,

where the high-ranking
officials had a top secret...

Sensitive materials inside.

As these scarred remains
show war was coming to peleliu.

By 1944 the us marines

were fighting their way through
the Japanese controlled islands

in the western pacific.

The whole American
strategy was island hopping

so we hop from necessary
island to necessary island.

The kind of air support
that would be required

for the operations to
retake the Philippines

and to take Japan
needed airfields,

needed islands.

That meant that
the leathernecks,

the us marine corps had
to retake those islands.

Peleliu was their next target.

But there were some who thought
that an invasion here was unnecessary.

There was talk in the
American command of bypassing

it but the marines were
already on their transports.

The naval taskforce

was already setting
sail for peleliu.

And it's decided,

"well, it's probably gonna
be easy so let's just do it."

They assumed that the Japanese

would do the same
thing they always did

and try to stop
invaders on the beach.

The last thing they expected
was that the Japanese army

would have learned
from its mistakes.

But they did.

The stage was set
for a bloody showdown

between two great
military powers.

So, we've got two American
rounds that were lodged

in to this column here.

And you can see by the
trajectory where it went in,

came from my left side

and that's where the
landing beaches are at.

8:30am, September 15...

The marines began the
agonisingly slow journey

towards the beaches
in amphibious vehicles.

We're at orange beach
where the Americans began

their invasion onto this island.

It was highly defended due
to the fact that this beach

is actually the shortest
distance between the water

and the actual runway
which is the main objective.

After a week of fierce fighting
and unbearable temperatures,

the airfield was secure.

The first marine
division managed to take

the airfields on peleliu
island comparatively quickly.

It appeared that
victory was in sight.

But aerial intelligence
collected before the invasion

had failed to spot a key detail.

The marines were
walking into a trap.

Part of the problem

with identifying a lot of
the features of the island

from above is when
you have thick vegetation,

you can hide sheer cliffs,

you can hide quite a lot of the
topography under a blanket of green.

So, it looked like,
"oh, if I take the island,

"I've, I've got
the whole island."

The Japanese defenders
had made the most

of peleliu's hidden geography.

It's made out of predominantly

ancient coral reef limestone

that dissolves into
caves and natural ravines.

And actually it's
quite a soft rock.

You can actually build
your own defences

into the mountain.

It had been impossible
for us intelligence

to identify the extent

of the massive
Japanese defence network

hidden below ground.

This caves that we
have here in peleliu,

there's about 300
to 400 of them.

They took about ten months

to develop and
construct these caves.

Many of the caves were also
dug out by local labour as well.

Prior to the invasion the
Japanese had evacuated

all the local men
off this island

due to the fact that

they didn't want
any of the local men

to go over to the us side...

Side and reveal the
locations of these caves.

The Japanese commander
colonel kunio nakagawa

could control the entire defence

from the heart of
this cliff-side fortress.

The Japanese were
hunkered in within this Ridge.

Many Japanese men had
lived and stayed in these caves'

very harsh conditions.

Some of these caves were
small enough for one person,

his gear and some supplies.

Many Americans called that
a sniper cave or a foxhole.

Other caves are
actually much bigger

and they would
connect with other caves

and interlock and
form a network of caves

up to a dozen or so entrances.

The fight for peleliu
was about to become

one of the most brutal
of the pacific campaign.

(Dramatic music)

It's a real departure, peleliu,

from the normal
Japanese doctrine

which is to fight
at the water's edge,

deny the marines a foothold.

The marines get
ashore, take the airstrip

but then they're pounded
from this central height,

this big massive that
overlooks the island.

The Japanese defence was
designed to pound fire down

into pre-registered positions

where they knew the
Americans would have to come.

To fully control the island,

the marines needed
to take the high ground.

The Americans called
that bloody nose Ridge

'cause first marine division,

they went up there and
they got a bloody nose.

The battle for bloody nose Ridge
was just absolutely ferocious.

For the marines, it
was having to fight

this deadly adversary that had
essentially entombed himself

inside this cliff face.

And he had to be dug out and
he was not gonna surrender.

What it came down to was
grunts with rifles, mortars and guns.

Peleliu's network
of caves and tunnels

meant that the marines
could never be sure

where their enemy was.

American soldiers would be
running up an American flag

and then they would
smell Japanese rice cookers

underneath them as the
Japanese were still installed

in these fortified
caverns under their feet.

After nearly two months

of grinding their way
up bloody nose Ridge,

the us forces were
finally closing in on victory.

The Japanese
commander on the island

transmits a last
message to Tokyo saying,

"all is lost, the
island has fallen."

And then he and his
staff commit suicide.

This is where they found the
body of colonel kunio nakagawa.

When the Americans
came to this part of the island

and found his body,

that's when they declared
the battle of peleliu over.

But for some, the
conflict was not done.

Two years after
world war ii was over,

a Japanese official
had to come to peleliu

to prove to the remaining
Japanese soldiers

that the war was really over,

that they could put their
guns down and go home.

More than 12,000 us
and Japanese soldiers

lost their lives in the
ferocious battle for peleliu

and many more were injured.

After the war, the
Americans calculated that

so good were the
Japanese defences

that it took 1,500
rounds of bullets,

grenades or artillery to kill
a single Japanese defender.

And when the locals
returned to the island,

it was unrecognisable.

My people were
asked by the Americans

to bring in fruits and
vegetables to replant here.

Bring back coconuts,
bring back papayas,

bring back bananas to replant

because the island
was, phew, flattened.

In the icy waters that
surround st Petersburg, Russia,

is an oddly shaped structure.

It's got two long sides

that are both
rounded off at the end.

It looks a bit like a
kidney bean in shape.

It's made of solid
brick and concrete

and the outside is
an ominous black.

A closer look reveals
something unexpected.

There's a large courtyard
surrounded by rounded architecture

and it almost looks like
a mediterranean Plaza.

Inside, it's a work of art.

There's this steel
staircase that's rusting away

but exquisitely formed.

This place was
not built in a hurry

and it wasn't built
on a budget either.

But further in, things
take a chilling turn.

The inside of this
building is empty,

almost as if it's been
stripped or sterilised.

This imposing fortification
was built to intimidate.

But what it was designed
for and what it became

are two very different things.

This place was armed and
prepared for a sea battle

but it ended up fighting
a very different war.

So, how did this sterile
shell come to save lives

instead of taking them?

Russian archaeologist,
sergey solovyev,

has explored this marooned
stronghold many times.

(Speaks Russian)

The deep waters
of the Gulf of Finland

have long left
Russia open to attack.

At one end is Russia's old
capital city of st Petersburg

and at the opposite end

are Europe's other great
powers, France, Germany, britain.

And by the 1830s the Russians
needed to build a new fort

in the Gulf itself to
keep their capital safe.

(Speaks Russian)

Building an island,
then the fort on top,

took seven years.

The result was the
distinctively designed

fort Alexander.

(Speaks Russian)

But the guns of the
tsars' imperious fortress

would never fire a
single shot in battle.

Because by 1845 soon
after its completion,

fort Alexander had
become redundant.

Military weaponry was
becoming so powerful

that the fort's walls

could no longer withstand
an enemy shelling.

But decades later,
the fort did see action

when Russia was
attacked by an enemy

more deadly than any Navy.

(Dramatic music)

In the late 19th century

a pandemic was
spreading across the world.

The bubonic plague.

The plague had already ravaged
parts of the globe twice before,

in the 6th century
and in the 14th century.

This disease spread
from country to country

through different ports.

At every port, rats would
escape from the ships

but it was really their fleas
that spread the disease.

And with the growth
of international trade,

by the 1890s the so-called
third plague pandemic

was reaching its peak.

It had already
reached parts of Europe

and was now knocking
on Russia's door.

(Speaks Russian)

The Russian government decide

they're going to study
the disease in a lab.

Have lots of scientists
working with samples,

trying to find a vaccine

and of course they had
the perfect place to do it.

The isolated artificial
island of fort Alexander

with its high level security
was about to come in to its own.

(Speaks Russian)

The mighty fort had
to be repurposed

to contain the unseen
enemy now inside its walls.

(Speaks Russian)

Within the infectious
side of the fort

the laboratory set
up was scrupulous.

(Speaks Russian)

The labs and their operation

were pretty
sophisticated for the time

and they had, you know,
vials, test tubes, lab coats.

The first floor of the fort

had a series of
laboratory facilities,

libraries, conference rooms
and something surprising.

(Speaks Russian)

Rodents, monkeys and reindeer

were also used for trials here.

They brought in
animals to this fort

so that they could infect
them with the plague.

There are photographs

of how they'd perform
autopsies on the animals.

Pinning their legs
back with wires.

It's gruesome stuff.

The laboratories extended
to the fort's second floor.

They experimented with
different types of the disease.

They even made a
dust that could be inhaled

and in other instances
they simply injected

the specimen into
animals' windpipes.

But it was only a matter of time
before something went wrong.

With all the lab's
sophistication

they still couldn't completely
remove the possibility

of the disease escaping.

The scientists used
the fort's isolated

upper levels to deal
with the unthinkable.

(Speaks Russian)

Despite stringent
safety measures

they had to use this isolation
unit at the start of 1904

when the laboratory's head doctor
contracted the plague and died.

Three years later the
disease escaped again.

This time the
esteemed epidemiologist

lev podlevsky,

and his friend and colleague,
dr schreiber were on the frontline.

When schreiber developed
symptoms of the plague,

dr podlevsky rushed him
up to the dreaded third floor.

(Speaks Russian)

He died within three days and
with the body still contagious,

dr podlevsky had to
perform the autopsy.

Shortly after the
post-mortem of his colleague,

dr podlevsky started to feel a
burning sensation in his fingers.

But the researcher's
sacrifices were about to pay off.

Things looked grim
for dr podlevsky

but his colleagues
started administering

some of the antidotes
they'd been working on.

And in a few days it looked
like they were starting to work.

Podlevsky, and
the other scientists,

had developed a cure.

(Speaks Russian)

(Dramatic music)

As well as finding an
antidote to the plague,

the fort scientists also
worked successfully

on diseases such as
tetanus, typhoid and cholera.

But in 1917

the Russian revolution
brought the work

of the imperialist plague
laboratory to an end.

However with the antidote
inaccessible to most,

the third plague pandemic
lived on for the next four decades

claiming 15 million lives
before petering out in 1959.

Fort Alexander
earned a reputation

not through taking
lives in battle

but through saving them.

And sergey wants to
preserve it to remember those

who gave everything to do so.

(Speaks Russian)

In the remote telega
region of Romania,

lies an imposing set of ruins.

You come across the big
steel gate leading to a building

that looks like something
out of a dickens novel.

There are also outside
spaces around the outer parts

which are almost like
courtyards or gardens.

The structure of this
place is distinctive.

It's a strange sort
of horseshoe shape.

It has rings radiating out

and this is clearly
the most important

and key part of the building.

It looks like a mansion
or a wealthy home.

But once you get inside, the
story is completely different.

(Tense music)

There are gaping
holes in the roofs,

whole walls turned to rubble.

It looks like it's been ravaged
by more than just time.

A bizarre broken replica
of the building itself

hints at its greater
significance.

This ruined building set
in motion a chain of events

that would change
this country forever.

This is doftana prison.

Scott allsop studies
this tattered site

which once filled
Romanians with dread.

Doftana, I've been
surprised to find,

is not really remembered
that much by many Romanians

and yet the prison guards

regarded this as like
the bastille of Romania.

The complex dates back to 1895

but it wasn't until
two decades later

that it came into its own.

What was happening
in the early years

of the Soviet union

turned a lot of heads in Romania
where a battle was brewing

between the monarchy
and the communists.

In 1924 under king ferdinand,

the government outlawed
communism in Romania.

That anti-monarchism so
characteristic of communism

was one of the main reasons

why the Romanian royal family
wanted to imprison communists.

King ferdinand was very
worried about threats to his rule

so he designated

this location to become a
prison for political prisoners.

By the mid 1920s

around 300 political prisoners
were locked up in doftana.

The fact that there
is a single place

where the burgeoning
Romanian communist party

was all placed together
is absolutely fascinating.

If you lock up together

a group of active passionate
political ideologues,

you're asking for trouble.

This was more like a
university of communism

than it was a punishment
for being a communist.

They can develop their ideology.

They can indoctrinate
other prisoners

into their ideology.

So, by the time they get out

they are a much
more disciplined force.

The prisoners were even
compiling a communist newspaper

from within doftana's walls.

The fact that they
were able to do this

all under the noses of
the guards was amazing.

But separated by
the prison's cells,

the inmates had to
find inventive ways

to talk to each other.

So, in some of
the cells in doftana,

there were heating pipes

similar to this one back here,
and as a way to communicate

many of the communists
developed a tapping system

in order to send messages

between cells by using
the heating system.

They used wooden bed slats
to pass pencils and documents

through cell bars.

They even stitched makeshift
bags from bedding materials

to help pass around
their clandestine materials.

But they still faced the problem

of how to get the
newspaper out of the prison.

A nearby river provided them
with everything they needed.

Doftana is positioned
on the hills just behind me

and the storm drains that
were within the prison grounds

ran down to this river

and so the newspaper was
sent down the storm drains

and ended up in this river

where they were collected
by local party members.

The communists inside the
walls were absolutely determined

to get their story out.

These were men who
believed in a political cause

and they were willing
to go to great risks

to try to bring that
cause into reality.

The wide-reaching influence of
doftana prison didn't end there.

An extremely famous leader
who changed the course

of modern Romanian history forever
was once held right here in doftana.

In 1936 a new inmate

was sentenced to two
years' imprisonment

for communist activities.

The name of this new
arrival was nicolae ceausescu.

By the time ceausescu

was sent here to
doftana at 18 years old,

he was already described as a
dangerous communist agitator.

Ceausescu was young, head strong

and utterly captivated
by communist ideology.

On his arrival there he
would have been surrounded

by likeminded
communist activists.

The monarchy was still in
control but that would soon end.

World war ii completely changed
the landscape of Romania.

They were one of the most
active allies of Nazi Germany.

The Germans were finally
pushed out by Soviet troops.

In the aftermath of the war

the Soviets installed a
communist government in Romania.

The man at the helm was
gheorghe gheorghiu-dej

a former doftana inmate
imprisoned with ceausescu.

Following a series
of earthquakes

the newly installed
communist government

closed the prison down

and repurposed it for
its own glorification.

It was opened as a
museum to effectively honour

all of those founders of
Romanian communism

who had been held here.

The propaganda museum
even featured a scale model

of the place itself.

Doftana was absolutely vital
to the communist leadership.

It was important that
they were able to show

how communism was
effectively able to conquer

the bourgeois elements of
society that had preceded it.

We have evidence of leading
communists from China

being bought on tours to doftana

to prove how communism

was able to overcome
those obstacles.

When gheorghiu-dej died in 1965

ceausescu came to power.

Ceausescu went from being

a revered leader to
incredibly feared dictator.

As his time in office went on

he became increasingly totalitarian
and violent against his own people.

Ceausescu's control
was really summarised

by the secret police

that he introduced
into the country.

Ceausescu's Romania is
one of the worst examples

in existence of a,
of a truly totalitarian

repressive communist
dictatorship.

Eventually, the
collapse of communism

triggered violent
uprisings in Romania.

In 1989, ceausescu ordered

his forces to open fire on
anti-government demonstrators

and this was just a step too
far for the Romanian people.

The armed forces revolted
and captured ceausescu

before putting him in trial and
convicting him of mass murder.

Ceausescu's end
came when he was shot

by a firing squad
on Christmas day.

(Gunshot)

Doftana prison
also fell from grace.

No-one was really interested
in going back to the prison

as a kind of monument
and it continued to decay

and fall into disrepair.

Today, the authorities continue
to leave the prison to rot.

The terrifying leaders
that emerged from it

will long remain a part of
the Romanian consciousness.

In the deep south of Chile,

at the edge of a crystal blue
lake, sits a town frozen in time.

It doesn't really look like
your average lakeside resort.

In one of the most sparsely
populated places on earth

are the remains of a once
prosperous settlement.

There are shops

and a school
and a football field

and there is everything
you'd want in a nice town.

It's just empty.

There's lots of abandoned
kind of rusting machinery.

There's clearly something
that would be being processed.

A curious structure
built into a mountain

could offer up some clues.

It's almost as if the building
has been draped into the hillside.

I guess it's trying
to use, in some way,

the geography that's
already there but-but why?

At its height

this was one of the
most important buildings

to the Chilean economy.

Luis Casanova's father

bought this now
deserted site back in 1995.

The first time that I came
here I was about ten years old.

The feeling was like
this place was alive.

This is puerto cristal.

In patagonia in the aysen
region this deserted town

seems to sit at the
end of the world.

90 years ago there
was almost nothing here

until the first family moved in.

Luis has studied the
story of puerto cristal

and knows of the tragedy
that befell its first settlers.

The first family that lived here
was called the inayao family.

They settled here because
they wanted to have a life,

uh, farming.

Saturnino inayao arrived
with his family in the 1930s.

They were homesteaders.

They wanted to
farm this countryside.

They wanted to
break this ground.

They came to stake a claim

and make a life for themselves

in what they must have thought
was the wildest spot on earth.

The inayao family built a
house and started farming,

unaware of the vast
riches below their feet.

One day, one of the
children in the inayao family

discovered this
odd-looking rock.

And the father recognised there
was something unique about it.

It was grey. It was
shiny. It was heavy.

And saturnino took
the rock to his neighbour

and asked him if
he knew what it was.

The farmer then gave
it to a supposed friend

and they want off
and actually found out

that potentially there
could have been

fortune to be made.

They discovered
that this particular rock

had over 60% of lead.

The mountainous terrain
was rich in zinc as well as lead.

Although you're
not finding gold,

if you find lead and
zinc in such amounts

that it becomes commercially
viable to distribute it

around the world, you
can make a lot of money.

The inayao family
now had the potential

to become millionaires

because of what they
found on their property.

However, the inayao family
would never see a cent of that.

Saturnino inayao had the mistake

of asking the businessman
silva ormeno for help.

As soon as ormeno
realised that this was lead,

he went and registered
the land under his own name

and he promptly
evicted the inayao family.

With inayao gone
and the land rights

eventually ending up with
the aysen mining company,

in 1945 construction began.

And within three years,

an efficient lead and
zinc processing operation

was in place here.

At its height this was a modern,

effective, productive
industrial installation.

We are inside of
the processing plant

for the ore.

The first time I came
here it was still working

so you could hear the machines.

It was really loud and
you... Could see a lot of dust.

The metallic ores
were easy to mine

but hard to process.

These rusting relics
show how it was done.

The first step is this where
you have a primary crusher,

then on the bottom
of this machine

you have a conveyor
belt that moves

all the material
to the next step.

Next came the grinder.

Here everything that was heavy

moved up and the rest
was lighter stayed here.

The operation was crammed
inside the hill hugging building.

The strange shape
of this building

it's because they wanted to
make the process more efficient.

So, if you follow
the slope of the hill,

it's easier to move it.

The last part of the process

is to allow the
material to settle down

because of the gravity

and then you can
pack it and export it.

By the 1950s,

puerto cristal's lead and
zinc was being exported

all over the world.

The population had risen to 850

and the mining
company did all it could

to keep them here.

They give them
everything they knew.

They didn't have to pay

for the house or the
tap water, electricity,

anything of that
and they had access

to all the basic services
like health, education.

This is a place where
Chileans could come,

could put their roots down

and could really feel
they were part of a place.

In the '60s you had
the sense of community

with a lot of people
playing around

in the soccer field, the
children in the school

so it was a close
community, was hard work

and a hard labour
but they had things

and a quality of life that
you couldn't get back then.

The industry at puerto cristal

was still going
strong in the 1990s.

When Luis's father bought
into the processing plant.

He was really surprised

when he arrived because
he didn't expect to see

all the buildings

and all the infrastructure
that you had here.

But the thriving plant
soon fell on hard times.

The price of zinc on
Asian markets dropped

and the price of lead on
Asian markets dropped

and that meant that this
facility was no longer viable.

In late '90s,

it was so expensive to
be here extracting the ore

so that's the reason why
he decided to close the mine.

With no work to keep them
there, the population left.

Now, Luis wants to
preserve this place

for the sake of his father.

After my dad closed the mine,

he remained here
until maybe 2010,

when he got sick and
had to leave the place.

And he was the last
habitant of puerto cristal.

(Theme music)

Captioned by
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