With the war raging in Ukraine, an increasing number of people fear what would happen if it reached us in any way.
The opposition parties want Denmark ready. Therefore, they have asked for an assessment of the nation’s bunker capacity: to find out how many people could safely seek refuge with them from a hostile attack.
The last assessment was made in 2002. Twenty years later, the parties estimate, it could be a good time to map out how many bunkers there are in each municipality and how many people can live in them.
According to the right-wing newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the Liberal Party and the Conservatives have asked Minister of Defense Morten Bødskov to do just that.
80 percent of the population may be sheltered
The Danish Emergency Management Agency maintains that there is room for around 4.7 million people in the bunkers and safety rooms. This corresponds to 80 percent of the 5.8 million inhabitants in Denmark.
These bunkers can be used in case of, for example, explosions, a toxic gas cloud or war.
There are about 950,000 places available to the public. The other 3.75 million are in basements under private buildings.
However, the board’s figures go back to 2002, and it is feared that many of the piles have been dismantled and no new ones built to replace them.
Many rooms closed
“A number of bunkers have been dismantled since the end of the Cold War, so I would like to ask the Minister of Defense for an updated list of the bunkers we have, municipality by municipality, as well as location and number of places,” says the Liberal Party. This is what spokesman Peter Juel-Jensen says to Jyllands-Posten.
According to him, the emergency area has been neglected for many years.
Niels Flemming Hansen, defense spokesman for the Conservatives, agrees. He says that Denmark should draw inspiration from Sweden and give citizens access to an online map to see the location of all the piles.
Source: The Nordic Page