Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Saturday

A Look at Afghanistan's Elaborate Cave Network

Aired October 20, 2001 - 15:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Afghanistan's elaborate geography provides for some extensive hiding places. CNN's Donna Kelley now and the cave networks of Central Asia.

DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Since the beginning of the U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan we have been getting daily briefings of course from the Pentagon and we have seen satellite photos before and after of some of the sites that have been hit. But what we cannot see are some of the cave networks that are in Afghanistan.

At this hour, we are going to take a look at the natural man-made ones, they are both of those, and then also whether or not they could shield Osama bin Laden and how long they could stay. Joining us to discuss Afghanistan's elaborate cave network is geology professor Jack Shroder. He has extensively studied the terrain. Professor Shroder, good to have you join us.

JACK SHRODER, GEOLOGY PROFESSOR: Thank you.

KELLEY: I know you have spent a number years in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. Tell us what you learned there in kind of just overall with the cave network?

SHRODER: Well, the cave networks come in two varieties -- the kind that are dug by hand by people into soft sand and gravels, and then other kinds of natural caves in the limestones which are more in the central part of the country but somewhat south.

KELLEY: Let's go to smaller map or -- it's actually a larger map, but more details here of Afghanistan. Let's walk and see. Show us what you know about the area and where a lot of the caves would be?

SHRODER: Well, the hand-dug karez caves are in the lower part of the country, in the sands and gravels that wrap around Afghanistan from south to north. Some of the larger natural caverns in the limestones are in this area, in the central part, but to a certain extent down here in the Pashtun part of the country as well. And then of course, Osama bin Laden is reputed to have built caves. Actually, the Afghans started to build caves...

KELLEY: And how do they do that? Do they just dig them out of the mountainside?

SHRODER: Yes, they just dug them out with bulldozers and dynamite, presumably. Of course, Osama is an engineer himself.

KELLEY: What's the strength of those caves? I mean, what could they withstand? If you had bunker bombs or you had this bombing campaign going on, how much could they withstand?

SHRODER: Well, at karez I presume -- I am not an expert on explosives -- but the karez could not stand much -- many explosives. The deeper limestone caves in the central part of the country and perhaps also down in this area, some of those would be too deep I presume for those kind of ordinance, but I am not an expert in it.

KELLEY: Let's talk about the southern part of the country. You just mentioned the central part of the country. You brought some of your maps with you for us to look at. Let's start in the southern part of the country, and you can explain a little bit more for us about that.

SHRODER: OK, we are going to look at the geology of this particular area. And on the screen now you can see the -- the areas that are yellow and white are the areas that have a lot of karez. All around wherever there's yellow and white, that's sand and gravel.

KELLEY: OK, and is that what karez is, sand and gravel?

SHRODER: Well, karez are dug in sand and gravel by and large. So there are many places where the karez can occur that weren't drawn on the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that you saw just a minute ago. Yeah, up in there, exactly. Further up to the northeast. Yes, those areas.

KELLEY: Is this -- so, this is a look at the minerals actually in the density of a landscape?

SHRODER: This is a basic geology map, and it has -- the bedrock geology is the highly colored stuff, the greens and the reds and so on. And the yellow and the white is the sand and gravel.

KELLEY: And does that make a difference in the strength of the cave then?

SHRODER: Well, yes, a hard limestone -- the limestones tend to be green on that map and blue and purple to a certain extent. The bright red is not where the caves are. But so, there are thousands of caves in Afghanistan, thousands of hand-made -- made by human beings.

KELLEY: OK, so, thousands of natural ones and thousands of man- made ones?

SHRODER: Yes. Well, I don't think there are thousands of natural ones, but there are certainly thousands of man-made ones.

KELLEY: Let's quickly look at the water. Because how someone can sustain life in this -- and let's go ahead to next one if we could, to the next map -- and how they dig for water. Can you explain this to us?

SHRODER: Well, the well on the left of the screen is called the mother well, and that's the first one they dig down to the water table until they find the water. And then, they dig -- it is a hard job down there in the dark, because Afghans do not have a lot of electricity.

They then dig downhill -- that long blue tube is the korez, exactly right there. And then, they bring the water out on the surface that way. The other shafts are for light and air for the people who are digging the wells.

KELLEY: That's what I wondered about. So, you have air, you have food that they probably can stockpile, you have your water. How long do you think that they can sustain life in a cave, real quickly?

SHRODER: Well, probably for an infinite length of time. I mean, basically they can -- they have plenty of water there already, and whatever food supplies they have got, they can stay down there.

KELLEY: And how many people, what's the size?

SHRODER: Well, they are not very big. They are like a culvert underneath a highway, so they are only -- the thing would be only maybe three feet or four feet high in many cases.

KELLEY: All right. Professor Jack Shroder, nice to have you join us, thanks very much.

SHRODER: Thank you.

HEMMER: All right, Donna, thanks to you as well.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com