Dixia Cheng: Beijing’s Underground City And Cold War Shelter
David/FlickrThe entrance to Beijing’s Underground City.
At the height of the Cold War, as much of the world worried about the possibility of sudden nuclear fallout, citizens of Beijing, China could take solace in the fact that they had a bomb-safe refuge right below their feet.
Stretching across 33 square miles of underground catacombs, Beijing Underground City — or the “Underground Great Wall” — is a complex tunnel system hand-dug by citizens in the ’60s and ’70s as a protective measure against invasions, air raids, or even nuclear strikes, Atlas Obscura reports.
According to National Geographic, the order to construct these underground bunkers came straight from Chairman Mao, and by the end of the construction, Beijing alone had roughly 10,000 underground bunkers.
Clearly, the nuclear fallout never came, and Beijing’s underground bunkers were leased to private landlords in the early 1980s. Since then, a significant portion of these bunkers have been rented out to more than a million people, most of whom are migrant workers and students from rural areas.
And while these bunkers were equipped with some basic necessities — electricity, plumbing, and a sewage system — they were hardly made for long-term settlement. They lacked a proper ventilation system, leaving the air moldy, and residents had to share unsanitary kitchens and restrooms.
In 2010, Beijing prohibited the use of nuclear shelters and storage spaces for residential use, putting an official end to its city below the city, though the clean-up effort has continued on with significant difficulty.
