READ MORE: Inside Switzerland’s largest nuclear bunker – 40 years on Sonnenberg bunker was built in and over two motorway tunnels. Built on top of two motorway tunnels in the Sonnenberg mountain, it can provide shelter for 20,000 people. The largest such bunker- not only in Switzerland but also reportedly in the world - is Unterirdisch Ueberleben located in Lucerne. Today, Switzerland has 360,000 communal shelters able to accommodate the entire population in case of need. These structures are no longer compulsory in single-family houses, though the law stipulates that each resident “should be guaranteed a shelter in the vicinity of her/his place of residence”. They have, however, served other purposes over the years: to make sure this extra space doesn’t go to waste, many Swiss households used it as a storage space for wines, ski equipment, and other objects.ĭo you actually need a bunker in your home? So the answer to the question of whether these bunkers have ever been used in a national emergency, is no.

READ MORE: Swiss cutting back on nuclear fallout shelters The Local wrote about this change at that time: In 2005, Pierre Kohler, who was an MP at the time, submitted an initiative to abolish the law that made the construction of nuclear bunkers mandatory in private homes because, he argued, they were “relics of other times” and no longer necessary.īut the Federal Council rejected this proposal, saying these constructions were still useful outside of a war context, since they could also be used as hideouts during chemical accidents, natural disasters, or a terrorist attack using nuclear weapons.įrom 2012, however, only residential buildings with more than 38 apartments are required to have fallout shelters in their basements. They were to be used “during an armed conflict, especially one involving weapons of mass destruction”, according to the Federal Office of Civil Protection (FOCP), which added that these bunkers “provide a basic form of protection against a wide range of direct and indirect arms impact”.Īs Switzerland has not been invaded by Russians, or anyone else for that matter, the shelters never had to be used for their intended purpose. Today, such an act against Switzerland seems highly unlikely, but 50 years ago, at the height of the Cold War, the government saw this as a possible scenario - so much so, that it passed a legislation in 1963 requiring nuclear shelters in all residential buildings. The same kind of disaster preparedness which required, until fairly recently, that all Swiss serving in the military keep guns and ammunition in their homes so they would be ready to fight the enemy at a moment’s notice, also mandated that each dwelling had a well-equipped bunker in case the Russians attacked.Ĭoffee, opiates and nuclear fuel: What are Switzerland’s ‘strategic stockpiles’? Put it down to Swiss pragmatism and a penchant for meticulous planning: the Swiss don’t like to leave anything to chance and prepare for all kinds of scenarios, whether plausible or not.

Fallout shelter 3 bunker access code