How to get out of a household bomb shelter

Not many people know what happens to these blast-resistant spaces once the hypothetical bombs stop falling

- Yamini Chinnuswamy

The humble household shelter: In some homes, it is the "maid's room". In others, it is where junk goes to die. And in still others, it represents a loss of square footage to a space that cannot be structurally altered.

Nevertheless, if Singapore is ever under attack from aerial ordinance, many residents will have easy access to a household bomb shelter. But what happens after the hypothetical bombs have stopped?

The question came up during an on-air conversation between Kiss92 deejays Joshua Simon and Juliana Yeow in early July.

Yeow, referring to how shelters in HDB flats are built in a continuous vertical stack, asked where one goes once it is safe to leave the shelter.

"You just fall right through, right?" Simon pondered.

It is an issue that has got many in Singapore talking - the Kiss92 video has hit about 800,000 views on Instagram. It was also the topic of at least one debate on the r/singaporehappenings community on Reddit.

The idea of the household shelter is unique to Singapore, where the Civil Defence Shelter Act has mandated the inclusion of either a household shelter, or a storey shelter, in residential buildings since 1997.

Household shelters are located within residential units, while storey shelters are positioned in the common area on each floor - often an enclosed exit staircase in many private developments.

These shelters are designed to withstand blast and fragmentation effects, a spokesperson for the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) tells The Straits Times.