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Afraid of North Korea's nukes? Build a bunker, South Korean professor says
South Korean professor Lee says his shelter, buried under a metre (three feet) of earth, could keep him safe from a nuclear disaster.
If North Korea unleashes a nuclear attack on the South, architecture professor Lee Tae-goo has a plan: he'll retreat to his purpose-built bunker and stay underground for at least two weeks to avoid radiation poisoning.
With thick concrete walls, steel-reinforced doors and an air purification system, Lee says his shelter, buried under a metre (three feet) of earth, could keep him safe from a nuclear disaster and withstand a direct hit from a conventional missile.
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Built on his property in Jecheon city about 75 miles (120 kilometres) southeast of the capital Seoul, the government-funded bunker is part of a campaign by Lee to get South Koreans to take preparations for a nuclear fallout more seriously.
"Just 100 kilometres away from here we have North Korea, from which biological or nuclear missiles could fly," Lee told AFP.
He said he was also extremely concerned about a Fukushima-style meltdown at one of South Korea's ageing nuclear reactors.
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"South Koreans have not been required to build personal shelters for ages. There's a lack of public shelters and in many cases they're far away," he added.
Since the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, Seoul has remained technically at war with Pyongyang, and both sides routinely accuse each other of "provocations" that could tip them back into open conflict.
Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, and leader Kim Jong Un has recently ramped up work on weapons programmes banned by the UN, including staging drills it claimed simulated showering South Korea with tactical nukes.
Although Seoul's military maintains what it calls an "utmost readiness" for an attack, Lee said most civilians have forgotten the war and are not prepared.
