Attention, attention, this is the special information service in case of war; the country has been attacked with nuclear weapons, communications are severely damaged and the number of victims and damage to infrastructure is unknown at this time; please stay in this wave frequency, keep calm and don't leave your houses, you don't win by going out on the street”.
This is the message that the BBC has prepared for the apocalyptic scenario of an atomic attack on the United Kingdom. But staying quiet at home listening to the radio sounds like the advice in national parks in the United States, which recommends not moving in the event of a bear encounter, and only as a last resort, if the animal is heading towards you, run or climb a tree.
If a nuclear attack or accident occurs, scientific studies (endorsed by the Hiroshima experience) indicate that the most appropriate thing to do, in a city, is to take refuge in less than twenty minutes in a basement with the thickest possible cement walls and take iodine pills to mitigate the impact of radiation that can sneak in. Better still is to access one of the 258 bunkers from the days of the cold war that are scattered throughout the territory of the United Kingdom, confiscated by the government in the nineties because it considered that the possibility of using them was so remote that it was not worth the cost. of maintenance. Now, with the war in Ukraine, the aggressiveness of Putin (Russia is the power with the most atomic weapons), the tensions between China and the United States over Taiwan and the constant cyber attacks, the prospect does not seem so far-fetched.
Thus, the real estate market for bunkers is skyrocketing. The one at Kelvedon Hatch, in Essex, with three floors and 600 beds, is the largest of all those that have survived. Built in 1952 on land expropriated from a farmer, to house government officials and in the worst case the Administration would continue to operate, it goes unnoticed under a bungalow that was built on top of it so that it would not be detected from the air.
Although the authorities have disregarded its maintenance, it was purchased at a bargain price by a private citizen who rents it out for film shoots, parties, role-playing games and similar activities, and has made sure that the telephone lines work, there is coverage cell phone and have running water, heating, electricity and air conditioning. Now, though, he's thinking of keeping it for himself, just in case. And he says that only for an offer of half a million euros he would rent it for a few years, if there are interested parties.
Most of the former bunkers are now museums, car parks, disused subway stations, warehouses, or have apartment or office buildings on top, including one that is a cannabis cultivation facility. But a few are preserved as they were originally, converted into four or five-bedroom family homes (in Wiltshire, Somerset, Norfolk…) that sell for up to a million euros.
The bunker that does remain operational is the one under the Ministry of Defense, where the prime minister, members of the Cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the main officials would go, with its own communications system for, among other things, activate the nuclear codes and launch a retaliation against Russia, China or whoever. Known as Pindar (a Greek poet whose house was left standing after an attack that completely destroyed his city), it has meeting rooms, hundreds of rooms, an arsenal of batteries, mobile chargers, medicine, food and bottled water. , and is connected underground to Westminster tube station and the basements of government buildings and Buckingham Palace (although the protocol is that the queen would hide in a different place than the leader of the Executive, and the family would be divided into groups, some in a boat hidden in the lochs of Scotland). The idea of the Python Plan is to fragment the leaders into cells so that the country does not end up headless.
In the United States there are millionaires who have had luxury bunkers built with a swimming pool, a library, a bar, a heated swimming pool, a cinema, a billiard room, a gym and a shooting range. In Britain, at least for the moment, they are a bit more rustic.
