World’s deepest station that’s so far underground it takes 10 minutes to get to the train

A train station in that is so far underground it takes 10 minutes to get to the platforms has left people feeling ‘claustrophobic’ when watching videos of its passengers.

Hongyancun station in Chongqing, southwestern China, was opened in 2022 and stretches down 116 metres (348 feet) below ground. One user made a video showing followers the inside of the structure, in which he can be seen having to ride seven escalators down to the station. In the caption, he wrote that he had to take another escalator to get to the platform itself.

Two lines are served by the station – Line 9 and Line 5 – and the height difference between two of its entrances is more than 141 metres (463 feet). If passengers are unable to take the escalators, there are elevators going down to the platforms and some people have reported experiencing ear blockages when using them due to the depth of the station and the difference in air pressure.

However, Hongyancun hasn’t been the world’s deepest metro station for very long. Before it was opened, that record was held by Arsenalna station in Kyiv, . Opened in 1960, the station sits at 105.5 metres deep (346 feet) and it is now the second-deepest in the world. During the 2022 invasion of the country by , Arsenalna was used as a bomb shelter.

In Britain, the deepest station is Hampstead, a Underground station. Sitting 58 metres (190 feet) below ground level, the are so far down as the station entrance in North London sits on top of a hill.

The deepest transit station in North America is the Washington Park Max station, which was built in 1998 and sits 79.2 metres (260 feet) below ground.

At a similar depth is Admiralteyskaya, a station on the Frunzensko-Primorskaya Line in Saint Petersburg, . At 86 metres (282 feet deep), it was opened in December 2011 and sees about 992,000 people passing through each month.

In , the Pyongyang Metro is one of the deepest metro systems in the world, sitting at 100 metres (328 feet) underground. Before the -19 pandemic, North Korea only received about 5,000 western tourists each year, so not much is known about the transport system.

One photographer from who visited the metro told CNN that she was accompanied by tour guides for the entire journey and was “only allowed to travel for a few stops”. She added that she was not allowed to take pictures from inside the tunnels.