Vladimir Putin’s bloodshed in Ukraine has ignited fresh fears of nuclear war –and it’s got us thinking about the network of nuclear bunkers across Europe.
Images of Ukrainians hiding in Kyiv’s metro stations have forced other Europeans to consider where they would take shelter if war came to their door.
Not since the end of the Cold War has the threat of a nuclear explosion on the continent ever felt so close.
Some of the world’s richest people have even invested in bunkers similar to the one in the Netflix movie ‘Leave the World Behind’.
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg erected one in Hawaii. Kim Kardashian, Shaquille O’Neal and Tom Cruise are also said to have shelters or safe rooms.
It is rumoured that Bill Gates has bunkers under each of his homes. But what about the rest of us?
It seems the UK is more equipped for this kind of catastrophic event than any of its neighbours, with 276 nuclear bunkers spread across the country.
Metro.co.uk has created a map showing where many of Europe’s shelters are located, based on research by Subterranea Britannica, a society devoted to man-made underground spaces.
It’s not somewhere you want to have to go, but here they are (in case of catastrophe).
The UK
There are 276 nuclear bunkers dotted across the UK.
Most were built during the Cold War era, between the 1950s and the 1980s, when there were heightened tensions between the US and Nato, and the Soviet Union.
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There are 14 in the centre of the capital and 47 in total in the Greater London area.
There are eight in Birmingham, five in Manchester, four in Liverpool and four in Preston.
In Edinburgh, there are seven, and three more just outside of Glasgow. Seven are based in Aberdeen area. Meanwhile, Wales has 11, while Northern Ireland has just three.
Subterranea Britannica also details the state of which some of the nuclear bunkers are in.
Will London be safe if World War Three breaks out?
Experts have warned that London needs to ‘urgently adapt’ as it would definitely be on Putin’s hit list in case of a wider conflict in Europe.
Nick Cooper, author of London Underground at War, told Brooke Davies at Metro.co.uk: ‘If you are in a tube station and hit directly, let’s face it you are f***ed.
‘If there was a bomb coming I would be heading straight to Hampstead station which runs down to 58.5 metres below the ground.’
To learn more about evacuations and rationing in case of another conflict, you can read Brooke’s investigation here.
For example, the facility in Southwark Borough Control, located beneath a health centre at the junction of Peckham Road and Vestry Road.
After closure, the health centre was demolished in the late 1990s, but the bunker remains intact.
Germany
Germany has 19 bunkers altogether, with most located in and around Berlin and neighbouring cities.
Munich Central Station is also home to two civilian shelters which can accommodate more than 3,000 people.
After the war, one was used as accommodation for immigrant workers. Many of these were of Italian descent and so the area became known as ‘Little Italy’.
Europe's nuclear bunkers by numbers
Sweden
Renowned for its comprehensive approach to civil defence, Sweden constructed a vast network of nuclear bunkers during the Cold War.
There are five in Stockholm and two more in the Härnösand municipality in case of a nuclear conflict.
Katarinaberget – or Katarina’s mountain – is the largest nuclear shelter in Sweden.
It is big enough for more than 20,000 people and has bunks for 5,000 spread across three floors.
Czechia
Deep below Hotel Jalta (now the Jalta Boutique Hotel) – built in the second part of the 1960s on Wenceslas Square in Prague – is a nuclear bunker.
The facility, which takes us part of the basement, has capacity to house around 150 people. Its walls are three metres thick and originally had an emergency exit ladder which emerged in the square in front of the hotel.
Czechia also has a second shelter near the border with Poland.
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