Switzerland plans to upgrade a network of nuclear bunkers built during the Cold War amid global uncertainty, including a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This is reported by Reuters.
Thanks to a 1963 law, Switzerland built nuclear bunkers that guarantee a place to protect against bombs and nuclear radiation to each of its nine million inhabitants, including foreigners and refugees.
In October, the Swiss government began consultations on ensuring the countryʼs "resilience" in the event of armed conflict and plans to allocate 220 million Swiss francs ($250 million) to modernize old structures.
“This does not mean that we are preparing for conflict — that is not the main thing — but we have a network of shelters and we must maintain them and make sure that they are functional,” Louis-Henri Delarage, the commander of civil protection for the canton of Vaud, told Reuters.
In the village of Berscher in the canton of Vaud, civil protection officers inspected a bunker under a residential building and found that the door to the bunker would not close, the ventilation hole was wedged between potted plants and stone ornaments, and the escape tunnel, full of cobwebs, led to a deep hatch with no ladder. The shelter was deemed unusable in its current state.
The homeowner will be given a year to fix the problems, or face a fine of $900 for each residentʼs space in this public bunker.
After Russiaʼs full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the office of the civil defense commander of the canton of Vaud received hundreds of calls from concerned residents, all wondering where the bunkers were located and whether they were ready for use.
While most Swiss have private shelters, some rely on public ones.
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