China opens Chongqing nuclear plant to tourism

The tunnel darkens beneath eerie red and blue lights, the only beacons in the otherwise black surroundings.

The cave's air is chilly, rich with the odor of dust and freshly washed concrete.

Pressing past a giant People's Liberation Army green iron door, a concrete cavern the size of a football field opens up.

One wall, stretching over a hundred feet high, displays neon lit movie panels with images of atomic weapons and plutonium processing.

Across the hall, another wall displays a fiery orange atomic mushroom cloud.

Beneath this mock Armageddon is a field of sand filled with miniature Chinese army trucks and a life-size replica of China's first atomic bomb, which was detonated during a nuclear test in 1964.

In front of it all, Chinese families and friends stop and pose for photos and selfies.

Welcome to the belly of China 816 Nuclear Military Plant, a decommissioned Cold War era plutonium and weapons processing facility buried in the Chongqing mountains contains one of the world's largest man-made caves.

Construction commenced in 1967.

According to government figures, more than 60,000 soldiers worked on it for 17 years before it was shut down in 1984.

It opened for the Chinese public briefly in 2010 but was closed shortly after.

The 104,000 square meter facility, filled with 18 caves and 130 tunnel roads, recently opened again -- this time as a tourist destination accessible to international visitors.

Source: cnn