Homes / Field notes

A bomb shelter inside my Singapore apartment

Archival photograph of an American family bomb shelter

— Are you saying you have a bomb shelter right inside your apartment?
— Yes. Thick walls, a massive steel door with a lock, and two iron ventilation valves.
— But you live on the 20th floor!
— Yes. It is the top floor of the building.
— Do they even know how bombs work?!
🤔

Singapore’s Civil Defence Shelter Act took effect in 1998. New residential developments must provide either a household or storey shelter; SCDF publishes the current requirements. My apartment has a household shelter.

Steel door of a household shelter in a Singapore condo
A bomb shelter on the 20th floor
Storage shelves inside a Singapore household shelter
Our household shelter is now a storeroom

A live-in helper could sleep here — the room even has a small fold-down bed niche. A fairly small one. We do not have a helper who lives with us, so we use the shelter as a storeroom.

Cartoon of a collapsed Singapore apartment block with a stack of bomb shelters still standing
Illustration: the rest of the building has collapsed, but the bomb shelters are still standing.
Thanks for reading.Denya
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