Two teens are being treated for hypothermia after a dramatic Paris catacombs rescue.
According to emergency officials, tracker dogs helped locate two boys, aged 16 and 17, who had gone missing in the catacombs on Saturday, BBC News reported. It took three days and a four-hour emergency rescue operation to bring the boys to safety on Wednesday morning.
They were said to be suffering from severe cold but otherwise unharmed, according to BBC News.
It is not currently known who alerted authorities about the missing teens or why they got lost, but it is widely believed that the boys had snuck past the small section of the catacombs that is open to the public.
According to The Guardian, the catacombs comprise a network of about 150 miles of underground tunnels, which forms a maze beneath Paris. Part of the section is open to the public, but entrance into the other galleries is illegal.
However, members of the public have been known to access them through secret points.
This is not the first time an emergency rescue operation had to be carried out to locate and rescue people lost in the Paris catacombs.
A similar, highly publicized incident took place in 2011, when three people got lost in the network of tunnels and were rescued two days later.
Fox News reported that the three youngsters had left notes in different sites for their rescuers as they sought an escape route.
The catacombs contain remains of millions of Parisians who were transferred there during the eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. In a detailed history of the labyrinth, Les Catacombes de Paris explains that the transference of remains was due to graveyards being closed because of the risk they posed to public health.
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