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Where to find shelter if the UK comes under attack from nuclear weapons

Home> News> UK News

Published 13:16 12 Jun 2024 GMT+1

Where to find shelter if the UK comes under attack from nuclear weapons

That's if you don't fancy sprinting into the mushroom cloud to avoid the nuclear hellscape that follows

Joe Harker

Joe Harker

Featured Image Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Topics: UK News, Politics

Joe Harker
Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

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@MrJoeHarker

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In the event that the UK comes under nuclear attack from another country, let's say for sake of argument Russia, that would be a rather concerning development.

Should we ever get nuked then it's going to be game over for quite a lot of the UK's population, though there are places where you could possibly survive the catastrophic blasts.

If we ever were to be attacked, then the warheads would likely be detected before they hit their targets - namely us - and we'd get some early warning of what was happening.

Depending on where you live, that might be enough time to get to one of the shelters across the UK which was built with surviving a nuclear attack in mind.

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Thanks to the fine folks at Subterranean Britannica, a society for people fascinated by man-made underground structures, there's a handy map of all the nuclear bunkers in the UK that are known about.

It makes for comforting reading for some, but it's not quite good news for others.

Do you see any of these spots near you? (Subterranea Britannica)
Do you see any of these spots near you? (Subterranea Britannica)

Take your humble writer who lives and works in Manchester as an example, my best bet would be to dash over to the Co-operative tunnels which had a nuclear shelter built in it in the 1960s, which is apparently now a social club.

Either that or I'd be running over to the Guardian telephone exchange to try and make my way into there, but whichever one I picked it'd be a long shot to make it in time and successfully find the entrance, which don't exactly have signs pointing towards them.

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There's also a good possibility I'd be told there was no room, or realise that basically everyone else had the same idea so the prognosis wouldn't look too good for me.

A lot of these shelters are built so that officials will have somewhere to hunker down and communicate should the worst happen.

Many of the UK's nuclear bunkers were sold off after the Cold War. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Many of the UK's nuclear bunkers were sold off after the Cold War. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

The absolute best place to be in the event someone dropped nuclear bombs on the UK only holds 90 people at a place called Wood Norton in Worcestershire forest.

It's owned by the BBC and the broadcaster has said it'd be used in the event of a serious attack, but with quite low capacity you'd struggle to get in.

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There are a number of places in the UK which a country like Russia might target first given their ties to the armed forces, while the government has compiled a list of the stuff you'd need to give you the best chance of surviving a nuclear strike.

Meanwhile, in the event the UK was attacked, letters written by the prime minister that were sent to the UK's nuclear submarine fleet would be opened and detail the PM's orders for a response should the country have been targeted by a devastating attack.

Even if you could get to a shelter you might have a hard time getting in, have you thought about becoming a decorative skeleton? (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Even if you could get to a shelter you might have a hard time getting in, have you thought about becoming a decorative skeleton? (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

These letters are destroyed each time a prime minister leaves office and the new occupant of Downing Street has to come up with replacements.

In general, these letters tend to follow one of four instructions - to retaliate and launch a nuclear strike on the country that attacked the UK, to do nothing, to set sail for a friendly country and join up with them or to leave it up to the discretion of the submarine captain on the proper course of action.

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It's either that or you embrace your new occupation as either a pile of ash or one of many skeletons littered around the post-nuclear hellscape to provide some environmental storytelling for the survivors.

Given my experience of a world after a nuclear apocalypse from playing the Fallout games it'd also really help if you wrote some diary entries of your experiences for people to find.

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