A jaw-dropping video circulating on X has pulled back the lid on Beijing’s grim underground housing crisis, revealing a woman living in a cramped, water-logged tunnel with a large white duck as her only companion — a scene that looks ripped straight from a post-apocalyptic movie.
The clip, shared by popular X account Mario Nawfal, shows the woman in a pink jacket sprawled on a makeshift bed inside a low, arched concrete tunnel. A single bare bulb hangs from the ceiling. Clothes and plastic bags dangle from ropes. The floor is covered in standing water that reflects the light. On a small table nearby sits a large white bird — apparently a duck or goose — while the woman gestures toward it and adjusts her bedding amid the damp, claustrophobic space. Nawfal described the footage as “absolutely insane” and noted that some people in China, particularly in Beijing, live in sewers, heating tunnels, drainage pipes, and other underground spaces because of sky-high rents.
The video is the latest viral glimpse into a long-running phenomenon locals and media have dubbed the “Rat Tribe” (shǔzú). For years, estimates have put the number of people living below ground in Beijing at anywhere from roughly 200,000 to more than one million, mostly migrant workers and low-income residents who cannot afford the city’s punishing rents.
Cold War Bunkers Turned Into Homes
Much of this subterranean living takes place in the vast network of air-raid shelters and tunnels built during the Cold War. Known as Dìxià Chéng (“Underground City”), the system was dug by hand in the 1960s and 1970s under Mao Zedong’s orders to protect the capital from a feared nuclear attack. It spans dozens of square kilometers, with multiple levels, and was originally designed to house millions. Once the threat faded, sections were commercialized or simply occupied by people seeking cheap shelter.
In the 2010s, photographers and reporters documented windowless basement rooms under apartment buildings, hotels, and commercial blocks. Units as small as a few square meters rented for a fraction of above-ground prices, sometimes the equivalent of $40 to $70 a month. Residents shared toilets and kitchens, navigated poor ventilation, and dealt with dampness and mold. Many were young migrants drawn to Beijing for work but barred by the hukou household registration system from accessing many public services or affordable formal housing.
Sewers, Heating Pipes, and Extreme Cases
While most Rat Tribe members live in partitioned basements or former bunkers, some have gone even further underground. Chinese media reports from as early as 2013 described people living in sewers and manholes near areas like Lido Plaza in Chaoyang District. One man claimed he had spent nearly 20 years in a utility well to save money for his children’s education, emerging during the day for odd jobs. Others lived in heating tunnels, using the pipes for warmth. Officials have periodically sealed manholes with concrete after such discoveries, citing safety risks including flooding, poor air, and fire hazards.
A 2017 inspection of one Beijing compound found hundreds of people living in a basement with only one fire escape. Flooding has been a recurring danger; heavy rains have submerged makeshift homes in the past. In 2015 and subsequent years, authorities carried out large-scale evictions from underground spaces, moving tens or hundreds of thousands of people, though the economic pressures driving the practice have not disappeared.
Why the Underground Life Persists
Beijing’s housing costs remain extreme relative to many workers’ incomes. Migrants often earn modest wages in construction, delivery, cleaning, recycling, or service jobs. Above-ground shared rooms can still be expensive, while underground options offer proximity to work and lower costs. Some residents view the arrangement as temporary, a way to save money until they can afford better conditions or return home. Others stay for years.
Conditions vary widely. Some basement compounds have basic electricity and shared facilities. The tunnel shown in the recent video represents a more extreme end of the spectrum: standing water, minimal space, and an almost total absence of natural light. The presence of a duck adds an eerie domestic touch to an otherwise stark scene of survival.
Government officials have long argued that such housing is unsafe and have moved to regulate or clear it. At the same time, the sheer number of people who once occupied these spaces, and the continued reports of similar living arrangements, underscores the gap between Beijing’s gleaming surface and the realities faced by many of its lowest-income residents.
The viral video has drawn mixed reactions online, with some viewers calling the footage heartbreaking and others questioning its authenticity. Regardless of any single clip’s origins, the broader pattern is well-documented by Chinese and international media over more than a decade: a shadow city of people living beneath one of the world’s most expensive capitals, driven underground by rents they cannot afford and a system that offers them limited alternatives.
In a city famous for its skyscrapers and high-speed development, the Rat Tribe remains one of its most persistent and uncomfortable realities, a literal underclass living in the dark, waiting for a light at the end of the tunnel that, for many, has yet to appear.
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