There are still many approved shelters missing in Sweden. Although more than a year has passed since MSB urged property owners to review premises after the invasion of Ukraine, only seven checks have been carried out of Sweden’s approximately 64,000 shelters, TV4 Nyheternas review shows. In Sweden, there are approximately 64,000 shelters with space for approximately seven million people. Many of the country’s shelters are used on a daily basis for other purposes, such as basement storage, changing rooms or bicycle storage. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the calls to review the shelters in Sweden intensified. But even though over a year has passed, only seven shelter checks have been carried out by the responsible authority MSB, the Swedish Agency for Community Protection and Preparedness. In the last five years, 4,805 shelter inspections have been carried out in Sweden, of which 4,771 were failed. The most serious deviations are that signs are missing, that shelters cannot be prepared within two days as stated in the rules, that there is no spare exit or that the premises have suffered moisture or rust damage. During the same time, 12,211 inspections have been carried out, of which 2,869 shelters had major deviations. – Due to the pandemic, we had to wait with quite a few checks. But between 2021 and 2023, we have carried out several inspections, says Anders Johannesson, head of unit at MSB’s department for population protection. It is the property owners who are responsible for maintaining the shelter, while MSB is responsible for the preservation of the shelters and carrying out checks. The checks that are carried out are of a more comprehensive nature, and if deficiencies are discovered, the property owner must correct this and if this is not done, a fine can be assigned. The inspections are more for MSB to get an overview of the problems in its systems. And MSB now wants to start building 2,500 – 5,000 shelter places annually, updating the country’s large mountain rooms and looking at protective spaces that could be, for example, subway stations and larger underground garages. This is an investigation that the Ministry of Defense is currently looking at. – But it is a lot of money and depends on how much the government is ready to invest in this. Long-term planning is required for this, says Anders Johannesson, head of unit at MSB’s department for population protection. In the player above: See more about the shelters in Sweden.
t4-general
Almost no shelters in Sweden are approved by MSB
