Nuclear bunker teetering on cliff edge is just ‘days away from falling’
A nuclear bunker precariously perched on a cliff is only ‘days’ away from falling into the sea.
Tucked underneath the coastline of East Yorkshire is Tunstall ROC Post, a small brick building with one bed and a BT cable box.
Built in the 1950s amid the Cold War, it’s one of more than 280 bunkers in the UK designed to withstand a nuclear blast.
But since at least August, a part of the bunker has been poking out of the clay cliffs.
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Amateur historian Davey Robinson told the BBC that Holderness Coast is one of the fastest eroding coastlines in Europe.
He added: ‘And this bunker hasn’t got long left, perhaps just a few days.’
Davey and his wife, Tracy Charlton, have spent the last nine days filming the clifftop bunker, expecting it to fall into the sea at any moment.
While the words ‘nuclear bunker’ may bring to mind the ones built by cautious billionaires – complete with spas and cinema screens – Tunstall shelter is anything but.
It’s a nuclear monitoring post, a bare-bones underground structure where the Royal Observer Corps (ROC) were once stationed.
The officers of the now-defunct civil defence force would live and sleep inside, waiting for a nuclear explosion so they could alert the other posts.
Most spotting stations were sealed after the downfall of the Soviet Union – Tunstall closed in 1991, according to Subterranea Britannica.
Vandals managed to pry open the post, about 120 yards north of Seaside Lane, in 2002. Metal scraps litter the area, and the inside was set on fire.
One member of the research group wrote in August that between the flaky paint and the exposed brick, ‘one bad winter soon, it will be lost’.
The waves of the North Sea chip away two million tonnes of material from the cliffs every year, leading to the loss of 23 towns since Roman times.
Davey added that the Tunstall bunker captures how powerful coastal erosion can be, saying: ‘This whole area is eroding at a rapid rate and to see an actual physical thing moving it just shows what’s happening really.’
The couple’s daily YouTube videos about the bunker – or ‘bunker watch’, as they call it – have been viewed thousands of times.
One of their recent clips, ‘DID SHE SURVIVE?’, showed Davey filming the bunker after it was lashed by Storm Goretti.
Just before launching a drone to film the block, Davey showed a map of where the spotting post is for his international viewers.
Some viewers in the comments said they’re taking bets when the bunker will finally break – £10 on February 1, one said.
Another added: ‘Can’t believe that I’m waiting for an update on a bunker. A flipping bunker.’
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