Nuke Threats Lead Europe To Refurbish Cold War Shelters

Until now, nobody had seriously considered that the nuclear shelters built in the 1950s — and now maintained as a “historical curiosity” by the ArcelorMittal Warszawa plant in Warsaw might one day be used again, Vanessa Gera reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: An abandoned nuclear bunker

Poland has 62,000 air raid shelters and Warsaw’s subway and other underground shelters could hold all its 1.8 million residents and more in the case of an attack with conventional weapons.

Poland also drew up a plan to give potassium iodide tablets to local fire stations, which would distribute them to the population if needed. There has been a rush elsewhere in Europe on potassium iodide — which protects the thyroid gland in the neck in case of radiation exposure — including in Finland where the government urged the population to buy them.

Czech experts say potassium iodide is good when nuclear leaks happen but can hardly protect anyone from a fatal nuclear attack.

Finland, which borders Russia, along with Sweden and Denmark, have maintained their shelters in order. Finland maintains shelters in cities and other densely populated areas capable of accommodating around two-thirds of the population. A few of them are designed to withstand detonation of a 100-kiloton nuclear bomb.

Bomb shelters were a key element in the former Yugoslavia’s preparedness doctrine against a nuclear attack.

The most famous of all, in a mountainous area 60 kilometers (35 miles) from Sarajevo in Bosnia, is a vast underground fortress built to protect military and political leaders. Known then only to the Yugoslav president, four generals and a handful of soldiers who guarded it, the Konjic site was turned in 2010 into a modern art gallery.

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