io9: nuclear war

The City-Sized Nuclear Bunker Chairman Mao Built

Lauren Davis — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:46:19 PST

In 1969, Chairman Mao began work on a giant bunker beneath the city of Beijing to house the city's population in the event of a nuclear attack. The underground city was never operational, but the tunnels and facilities still remain.

Fearing a nuclear or other attack from the Soviet Union, Mao commissioned the construction of Dixia Cheng, which was built to hold restaurants, clinics, facilities for underground agriculture, and even a roller skating rink. Although the claim was never tested, the Chinese government claimed that Dixia Cheng could have housed Beijing's entire six million person population. Although some of the rooms and tunnels have been used for various purposes — public meeting spaces, government storage, hostels, a tourist attraction — but many of the tunnels have been boarded up or neglected. Still, some people apparently live in the portions of the tunnels not maintained by the government. Viceland visited some of the more neglected portions of the Dixia Cheng tunnels, and you can see more of the photos here.

[via Reddit]

Bomb Shelter Decor for Post-Nuclear Living

Lauren Davis — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:30:00 PDT

In the days of duck-and-cover drills and atomic anxiety, many families bought space in bomb shelters, stocking and decorating their possible nuclear homes. Richard Ross's photographs capture the abandoned shelters and what some families planned to take to the apocalypse.

Ross's book Waiting for the End of the World contains photographs and accounts of bomb shelters from across America, Europe, and Asia. Below are photos from just a few of those shelters: shelters in Sanpete and Salt Lake City, Utah, the Phillip Hoag and Charlie Hull Shelters in Emigrant, Montana, oil tycoon's Ling Chieh Kung's shelter in Conroe, Texas, and a public shelter near Zurich.

Picture Show: Waiting for the End of the World [GOOD Magazine via Presurfer]

Kitchen in shelter in Sanpete, Utah
Entrance to shelter in Sanpete, Utah
Storage Shelves in Sanpete, Utah
Entrance to shelter in Salt Lake City, Utah
Traverse tunnel in shelter in Salt Lake City, Utah
Entrance to Phillip Hoag Shelter in Emigrant, Montana
Communications tower for Phillip Hoag Shelter in Emigrant, Montana
Entrance to Kung's shelter in Conroe, Texas
Jail cells in Kung's shelter in Conroe, Texas
Operating room in Kung's shelter in Conroe, Texas
Bedroom in Charlie Hull Shelter in Emigrant, Montana
Bedroom in Charlie Hull Shelter in Emigrant, Montana
Living room in Charlie Hull Shelter in Emigrant, Montana
Air filters in public shelter near Zurich, Switzerland
Doors to public shelter near Zurich, Switzerland
Personal unit in public shelter near Zurich, Switzerland

An Underground Volcano Symbolizes Our Hobbesian Doom

Charlie Jane Anders — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:15:24 PST

I kind of love this sequence from 1951's The Unknown World, where a scientist decides to die by underground volcano, because the human race will just self-destruct anyway. It's nakedly political, and dementedly awesome.