- Lebanon says 100 dead in Israeli strikes on Hezbollah strongholds
- Man City's Akanji sends defiant title message after Arsenal battle
- Madrid's 'many styles' key to unbeaten streak: Ancelotti
- UK's Labour pledges economic rebuild amid free gifts row
- Barca goalkeeper Ter Stegen to undergo knee operation
- French mass rape trial moves on to new defendants
- Israel warns Lebanese as intense strikes target Hezbollah
- UK's Labour looks to be more cheerful despite gifts and welfare row
- Eurozone business activity slumps after Olympics boost
- Russia, Ukraine cross swords in sea dispute court battle
- Albania plans Sufi Muslim microstate within its borders
- EU launches WTO challenge against China dairy probe
- Murdoch's REA ups offer for property website Rightmove
- India's one-horned rhino numbers charging ahead, govt says
- Rescuers comb muddy riverbanks after Japan floods kill seven
- Asian stocks boosted by US rate cut, China stimulus hope
- Sri Lanka's new leader says no magic solution to crisis
- Israel warns Lebanese as wave of strikes hits Hezbollah
- New Socceroos coach Popovic confident he can rescue World Cup campaign
- 'Put Austrians first': On a pub crawl with far-right voters
- Trial begins in Italy student murder case that opened eyes to femicide
- Family of murdered Sri Lanka editor seek justice from new president
- Austria's far right woos anti-vaxxers with fund for vaccine 'victims'
- Long wait for justice in India's backlogged courts
- Rohingya refugees detail worsening violence in Myanmar
- Rescuers comb muddy riverbanks after Japan floods kill six
- Sri Lankan leftist leader sworn in after landslide election win
- Indonesia, NZ deny Papua rebel claim 'bribe' paid for pilot release
- Swearing, shoeys and swift legs: Singapore GP talking points
- South Korea warns of 'decisive' action against trash balloons
- Football Australia names Tony Popovic as Socceroos coach
- Japan quake, flood victim attempts fresh start with wife's memory
- Japan quake, flood victim attemps fresh start with wife's memory
- Asian markets extend gains as focus turns to US inflation
- Six dead after floods in central Japan: media
- Australian golf prodigy suffers career-threatening eye injury
- Gaza hospital a symbol of the ruin of war
- October 7: how Israel's deadliest day unfolded
- Bibles, sneakers, silver coins: Trump's merch for sale
- Met Opera opens season with tech-heavy 'Grounded'
- Colombia's Inirida flower: from 'weed' to emblem for UN meeting
- Colombia rebel group imposes control in restive coca zone
- Rams fight back to upset 49ers, Cowboys lose again
- Sri Lankan leftist leader to take office after landslide election win
- 300-kilo WWI bomb removed in Belgrade
- Zelensky in US to explain war plan to Biden, Harris, Trump
- 'Atrocious' Sudan war pushing refugees further afield: UNHCR chief
- 'Convergence' growing on global plastics treaty: UN environment chief
- MLB White Sox fall to Padres to match one-season loss mark
- All-Australian Ripper squad captures LIV Golf team crown
Swiss Cold War bunkers back in vogue as Ukraine conflict rages
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has reawakened interest in Switzerland's concrete nuclear fallout shelters, built during the Cold War with enough space to shelter everyone in the country.
Since the 1960s, every Swiss municipality has had to build nuclear bunkers for their residents, while such shelters have also been mandatory in all homes and residential buildings over a certain size built since then.
The shelters have become an integral part of the Swiss identity, on a par with the country's famous chocolate, banks and watches.
But the underground spaces, long seen as a quirky curiosity mostly used for storage or as very well-protected wine cellars, are being viewed in a new light since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Just days into the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin put the country's strategic nuclear forces on high alert, sparking global alarm.
Fierce fighting near Ukraine's nuclear power plants, including Chernobyl -- the sight of the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986 -- have also heightened fears that even traditionally neutral Switzerland could be affected by the war.
- 'Ukraine is very nearby' -
"People are discovering that Ukraine is very nearby," Marie Claude Noth-Ecoeur, who heads civil and military security services in the mountainous southern Wallis region, told AFP.
The wealthy Alpine country has pledged that each and every resident will have a shelter space if needed.
In fact, the country of 8.6 million people counts nearly nine million spaces across 365,000 private and public shelters.
But while there are more than enough spots at a national level, there are vast regional differences.
Geneva is worst off, with only enough places for 75 percent of its population.
Nicola Squillaci, head of Geneva's civil protection and military affairs division, said the shelters were conceived to provide protection "especially in the case of a bombing and a nuclear attack".
They would help protect the population "against the shock waves, and against radioactivity in the air", he told AFP.
Ducking into a private shelter for around 150 people, underneath a brand new residential building in the Geneva suburb of Meyrin, Squillaci pointed out how, in peace time, it was equipped with basement storage units for the apartment dwellers above.
But unlike most storage facilities, this one comes with composting toilets, kits for quickly assembling beds, and a ventilation system that filters the air coming in from the outside.
- 'Capsule' -
"It is like a capsule, with airlocks on emergency exits and main exits," Squillaci said.
"If the building were to collapse, the shelter would remain intact."
Switzerland's vast network of nuclear bunkers have a range of other day-to-day uses, including as military barracks or as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers.
But Swiss authorities require that they can be emptied and reverted back to nuclear shelters within five days.
So far, Switzerland's population has never been ordered down into the shelters, not even in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster.
Experts say the most likely scenario for needing to use them has always been a possible accident at one of Switzerland's own nuclear power plants.
But now the conflict raging in Ukraine has added a new, urgent layer to the national nuclear anxiety.
With public concern growing, Swiss authorities have published overviews of the available shelter spots, and have urged households to always maintain a stock of food to last at least a week.
With Ukraine, "the geopolitical situation has altered the paradigms a bit," Squillaci said, adding that authorities were receiving "enormous numbers of legitimate questions from citizens."
A number of property owners who previously sought to pay a fine rather than build bunkers were also backtracking, he said.
- 'Temporary protection' -
To compensate for the lack of shelters under chalets and other traditional mountain homes, Alpine cantons like Wallis meanwhile rely heavily on large collective bunkers.
In Evionnaz, a municipality with around 1,000 inhabitants, the collective shelter can accommodate around 700 people, counting 15 dormitories filled with row after row of three-storey bunk beds.
"The country asks us to be on the ready," Noth-Ecoeur said.
"Today we are in a preparatory phase, and we are ready to put the shelters to use."
Experts caution though that the level of protection provided by the shelters in the case of actual nuclear weapons use would depend heavily on the intensity and proximity of the strikes.
"The shelters could offer the population a certain level of temporary protection against radioactive events," Swiss defence ministry spokesman Andreas Bucher told AFP.
"A large-scale nuclear war would however be catastrophic, and no state would be able to guard against the effects."
B.Shevchenko--BTB