“One wrong move and I might get squashed like they do on the Saturday morning cartoons,” the young woman said in a video posted on TikTok.
A woman dubbed the “Tunnel Girl” for her popular TikTok videos showing her digging a tunnel system underneath her suburban Virginia home has been ordered to stop her project.
The young woman, who calls herself Kala the Science Girl, is a software engineer who says she decided one day she was going to build a tunnel through the wall of her basement. She does not have any permits or qualifications and her only guide was a book called, “A Beginners Guide to Civil Engineering.”
The woman cut a hole in the wall and started digging around 20 feet into the earth. As she went along she taught herself how to build walls, welding, laying electrical wires and plumbing.
She has been documenting her project on TikTok where her videos are being watched by millions, but many were stunned that the project was happening. Comments asked if building tunnels was allowed and if the woman’s project was legal. The answer is no.
“Every structural engineer out there is looking at this are all scratching their heads and saying, ‘what this person is doing,’” engineer Greg Bautista tells Inside Edition. He says if she keeps digging, her neighbors could be in for a surprise.
“It could easily affect not only her property but also the adjacent properties and if there’s any municipal utilities that are running nearby then they could be adversely affected also,” Bautista says.
This week, the city of Herndon shut down the woman's efforts to build a tunnel.
“So they did give me a stop work order and are requiring an immediate evaluation by a professional engineer,” the woman said in a video to TikTok.
But she is confident that she will secure permits and resume digging soon.
“It is constructed entirely below the slab of my house so it shouldn’t be too hard to get the permits and approval, so we’ll be working on that,” she said in a video.
A spokesperson for the town says they are working with the homeowner to correct any code violations and ensure the property is safe.
