Bunker Mentality

A growing number of concerned citizens are building subterranean emergency bunkers as a precaution against disaster. Should you join the underground movement? And if so, how?

- IAN TAYLOR

In February 2025, scientists at the University of Chicago moved the Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds to midnight. The clock is a metaphor for humanity's risk of extinction and this is the closest it has ever been to 'boom-time'. But given the state of the world, who could blame the scientists for their horror-logical tinkering? Climate scientists warn that we're behind targets to prevent catastrophic climate change. Artificial intelligence continues its march despite the omens of multiple experts and Hollywood movies. Even bird flu is attempting a comeback.

So it's perhaps no great surprise that an increasing number of people aren't hanging around to find out which aforementioned apocalypse strikes first. Concerned citizens and governments alike are investing in underground shelters, designed to sustain life in the event of a doomsday scenario.

Notable members of this underground movement include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is reportedly building a vast shelter, with its own food and energy supplies, in a compound in Hawaii. Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates is also reported to have huge shelters under his homes, in California and Washington.

But it's not just the super-rich who are bunker-curious. Nation states have also explored the idea. At the end of 2024, Switzerland announced plans to revamp its vast network of 360,000 underground shelters enough to house more than 9 million people. (In Switzerland, every citizen has a right to underground shelter thanks to a law passed in 1963.)

Meanwhile, in Finland, the city of Helsinki is often hailed as the gold standard of underground civil defence planning, with huge spaces built not only for 'just-in-case' scenarios, but integrated into modern life with swimming pools and restaurants.