Subterranean Star Street

If you live or work around Star Street, Wanchai, I guess the tunnel you're most interested in is the new one that will link Pacific Place 3 to the Admiralty MTR. But did you know you're also next to one of the old wartime tunnel networks, built as air-raid shelters for the public to use during the second world war?

Here is a rough outline of the original tunnel layout, drawn in red lines on Google's map of the area. The main road at the top of the picture is Queensway / Hennessy Road, then below the tunnels you can see the curve of Kennedy Road:

Most of this tunnel network was cut out of solid rock, so should be in relatively good condition. However construction of several new tower blocks in the area means there are not many external signs of the network left. There is only one of the original six portals remaining. Walk up to the top of Electric Street and look along the back of the building to your left. There you'll see portal 60:

The gate to the alley was not locked so I could take a closer look. It looks as though a section of lighter-coloured bricks near the bottom have been replaced relatively recently?

On the right of Electric Street would have been portals 58 & 59, but there is no sign of them now. They were removed when the slope was excavated. I wasn't expecting to find any sign of portals 55-57 either, as the Star Crest residential development has been built where they were located. However if you walk up the short dead-end street to the East of Star Crest, you'll see a metal door set into the back wall.

When the tunnels were built, the shrine in this picture was just in front of the original rock face and portal. You can see the current door is some distance back from the shrine, showing the excavation that was done in preparation for Star Crest.

This door fronts the tunnel that would have emerged at portal 57. You cannot see inside, but there seemed to be a steady flow of water running out from the tunnel.

If you walk along to the other end of Star Crest, you'll see Monmouth Path, which leads up to Kennedy Road. Follow the path up the hill a short way and just past the limit of the Star Crest development you'll see a small old building:

It covers the top of the tunnels' ventilation shaft, and is similar in style to the one at Mount Parish. The difference is that ths one has a doorway, though it is blocked up now.

Poking the camera over the edge gives this picture. 

You can just see the cutout for the door on the right, and marks in the wall below it which would probably have been the rungs of a ladder. There is a lot of debris at the bottom. It doesn't look like the tunnel floor, so it's not clear if the debris has piled up from the floor to this point, or if it is resting on some sort of net/mesh cover set into the shaft.

There is less to see here than at the other tunnels we've looked at. It would be very interesting to hear from anyone that spent time in them. They were behind the front line at the time of surrender, so I guess they would have been used right up to that point.