Should President Putin actually use nuclear weapons in the future, we will not have to count on sufficient air-raid shelters in the Netherlands. Gerrit Eijsvogels, guide at the only fully operational nuclear bunker in Oss knows this. “Let’s pray it isn’t necessary.”
Due to the corona measures, the tours still have to start again. Nevertheless, Eijsvogels has been regularly in the bunker in his head in recent days. “Then I think of what I’ve been saying all these years: they never throw an atomic bomb here. But now I’m also starting to get a bit more anxious.”
Four thousand people. So many can go to the cellar in Oss, which was built in 1980. It looks like a normal parking garage. In fact, this is how the space under an apartment complex is now also used. But there is a lot more hidden behind the thick concrete walls.
“It’s still full of machines here,” says Eijsvogels, who once fought for the preservation of the cellar together with his cousin. “For example, one device ensures that outside air full of radiation first passes through a kind of large sandbox to filter everything. And even if chemical weapons are used, we have a machine with carbon particles that cleans everything.”
But there are also more mundane things available. “Some toilets, water points and the opportunity to refresh yourself.” By the way, don’t think about a full shower. “That was not necessary, because people should stay here for a maximum of two to three days. Then the radiation outside has largely disappeared.”
If necessary, the cellar in Oss is ready for use again in no time. “The engine is even half filled with diesel.” But that is unique, explains Eijsvogels. “In Den Bosch, for example, you still have a beautiful nuclear bunker under the provincial government. But that has now become just an archive. Nice to see, but it is no longer useful in an emergency.”
And so, according to the guide, there are several bunkers that have lost their function over the years. “How much exactly, I dare not say. If you want to have it ready in time again, then you should actually get to work now. In any case, we don’t have to pin our hopes on it, like that madman in Russia decides to throw away such a marble somewhere. That is a misunderstanding anyway: such a bunker really only works against radiation. If such a bomb falls on top of it, everything is still broken.”