Could a literal nuclear bunker hanging off a precarious cliff be a harbinger of the impending catastrophe our society seems to be teetering on? Not good enough for you? Well, that’s what we have.
The brick building, near Tunstall on the UK’s East Yorkshire coast, is believed to have been built in 1959 as a lookout post in the event of a nuclear war. But now there are only a few days left before falling into the sea British Broadcasting Corporation Reports say coastal erosion has eroded the top of the cliff on which it sits.
The condition of the bunker is so precarious that East Riding of Yorkshire Council has asked locals to stay away from the cliff tops and areas below the bunker in case of a collapse.
“We live on one of the most eroded coastlines in Europe and the bunker doesn’t have long left, maybe only a few days,” David Robinson, an amateur historian who was photographing the bunker’s final days, told the outlet British Broadcasting Corporation.
At the time of reporting on Tuesday, Robinson said he and his partner had been visiting the Tunstall site every morning for the past nine days. “We’re releasing the video on our YouTube channel, and it’s generating interest from around the world,” Robinson said.
The bunker, officially known as Royal Observer Corps Post Tunstall, is a relic of Cold War paranoia. “It was designed so that people could live in it and just wait for a nuclear explosion to happen and they could tell other people in other bunkers around the country,” Robinson said.
Today, however, “it’s a symbol of the area’s erosion.”
To some extent, coastal erosion is a natural and inevitable process, but geologists believe that rising sea levels caused by global warming are accelerating the process. Around 17% of the UK’s more than 10,000 miles of coastline are currently affected by erosion, and communities like Tunstall are feeling the effects keenly.
“This whole area is eroding very quickly, and seeing an actual physical object moving is an indication of what’s going on,” Robinson told reporters. British Broadcasting Corporation.
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