Magyar Barlangi Mentőszolgálat, Budapest

With a past of three decades, the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service is one of the oldest of its kind. Undoubtedly the major reason for the early emergence of the system is that there are now six inexplicably intricate labirynths of caves each several km long amounting to a total length well over 30 km under the inhabited central areas of the Hungarian capital with a population over 2 million. Often by breaking open locked gates, reckless youths regularly ventured inside without the appropriate equipment and lighting, losing their way or suffering accidents. In the past three decades the rescue service was alarmed more than a hundred times in Budapest alone. In most cases the lights ran down and people got stuck in the cave. Usually the families of those missing called for help. No one should take the risk of losing his way or getting stuck too lightly.For example, only the bodies of four young men, of whom nobody knew they would go into a cave, were found by speleologists two months later.