Global nuclear tensions and the threat of a Third World War appear closer than ever before President Joe Biden allowed Ukraine to use US long-range missiles in Russia.
The attack prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman to say it could trigger a ‘nuclear response’, and fears of escalation have gripped the UK, prompting some extreme measures.
Now, nuclear bunkers that can fit in a homeowner’s back garden are being sold on eBay for extortionate prices – but they’re being snapped up fast.
A typical bunker has a toilet and an ‘observation room’ to give those lucky enough to find shelter during times of exposure.
One bunker in Cumbria was bought for £48,000 – more than three times its £15,000 cost.
Others are expected to hit the market as tensions continue to rise and the threat of a Third World War feels very real.
The heat of the Cold War finally cooled in the early nineties. ‘The threat of world war no longer exists,’ said Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1991.
In 1993, most of the UK’s bunkers were decommissioned and sold, and many were bought by telecommunications companies for use as mobile phone masts.
But many persisted and were caught quickly.
One such shelter in Buxton, Derbyshire, sold for £36,000 earlier this year – despite not having a toilet.
Another nuclear bunker buried under a hill sold under the hammer for £36,000 – including a whimsical Renaissance-style interior.
A property in a field in Derbyshire fetched more than double its £15,000 guide price, with dozens of bidders from across the UK battling it out on auction day.
John Graves, 37, bought one of the decommisioned bunkers and restored it to its original glory.
He said provisions would be stacked so that the occupants could survive for two weeks underground in the event of a nuclear explosion.
But he said since Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, the number of hopeful buyers who expressed fear of a future world war had decreased.
Jon joked: ‘You’d think it would be the other way around. But it’s certainly topical with the way American politics are going now and Russia and Ukraine fighting.
‘It won’t survive a direct hit, of course, but from a novel perspective, it’s certainly interesting.’
Even if the owners of these bunkers are lucky enough to have access to shelter in the event of a nuclear disaster, they probably won’t be able to stay indefinitely.
The British population only has a 10-minute warning, if, to prepare in the event of a nuclear attack.
An intercontinental ballistic missile carrying a nuclear warhead takes only 20 minutes to travel from Russia to England before exploding with the force equivalent to 1,000,000 tons of dynamite.
While Russia has updated its doctrine to lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons and British Storm Shadow missiles have been fired into Russian territory for the first time, this threat appears to be greater than ever.
If a bomb of that size were to hit central London tomorrow, an estimated 1,050,720 Londoners would die and 2,489,210 people would be injured, according to nuclear modeling website NukeMap.
Contact the news team by emailing webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check out our news page.
MORE: Putin reappears in Moscow as Russia begins building £300,000 nuclear bunker
MORE: Map reveals possible US targets on Putin’s WWIII nuclear hit list
MORE: Trump camp accuses Biden of trying to start World War 3 before taking office
