Chengde fallout shelter to become tourist complex

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Chengde fallout shelter to become tourist complex

(Xinhua) 13:25, August 03, 2013

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Once designed to protect residents from a nuclear explosion, a fallout shelter in north China's Hebei Province is to be transformed into a tourist attraction.

"The township government has planned to build a tourist complex inside the fallout shelter," said Li Baoyun, chairman of the people's congress in Shouwangfen Township in the city of Chengde, a famous summer resort about 250 km from Beijing.

Located beneath the town center, the shelter stretches 2.5 km from east to west and 1.5 km from north to south, and it was designed to accommodate a combat hospital of 2,000 square meters and a warehouse of more than 4,000 square meters.

The main corridor, which once led to an auditorium, cinema, power station and dwellings, is wide enough for two trucks to pass along side by side.

Four different areas are set to be developed based on the existing shelters and underground channels, according to local government documents released in late July.

With the complex expected to be opened by the end of 2015, the plan is for an entertainment "under-city" to be filled with catering and shopping attractions.

A "haunted adventure land" will replace the combat hospital.

And a picture show giving information on how the shelter was used in preparing for war and storing food supplies for use in case of famine will also be included. Audiences will get a fresh view of history through simulations.

Lastly, the government blueprint also mentions an area featuring a cinema with 3D film technology, a cafe and a zone themed around science fiction.

Built in the late 1960s, the fallout shelter was initiated by China's late chairman Mao Zedong as a response to the Vietnam War and a downturn in Sino-Soviet relations.

Li Baoyu, then 20, was actually involved in building the original facility. "I was one of hundreds of workers carrying rocks and cement," he recalled. "I was a tractor driver and worked there for about three years."

Kang Yonglin, a retired doctor, was impressed by how the shelter was transformed into a makeshift hospital after the deadly earthquake that jolted the neighboring city of Tangshan in 1976.

"All the medical staff and patients were transferred to the fallout shelter, including some 100 earthquake victims," said Kang, adding that the temporary hospital was finally closed in 1978.

The fallout shelter has never been officially used since then, local villagers told Xinhua.

However, due to the relatively low temperature underground, some vendors have taken to using the shelter for cold storage.

Li Baoyue has been storing vegetables and fruits in the shelter for over seven years.

"The shelf life of vegetables inside the shelter is twice as long as at ambient temperature in summer time," the vendor said, admitting that about 10,000 yuan (1,618 U.S. dollars) can be saved in storage costs each year.

But Li Baoyun thinks the storage function is a huge waste of the historic construction.

"The tourist complex, upon completion, will boost the local economy and revolutionize villagers' farming life," he said.

The utilization of wartime constructions is not a new thing in China. Shanghai has opened most of its air-raid shelters for commercial use, with underground parking and department stores being the most popular appropriation, according to the Shanghai Municipal Civil Defense Office.

Cities such as Jinhua and Wenzhou in east China's Zhejiang Province have also opened air-raid shelters for residents to escape the heat in the scorching summer.