Nuke disaster rekindles U.S. interest in fallout shelters via Asahi Japan Watch

August 20, 2011

By TOSHIHIRO YAMANAKA / Correspondent

Backyard fallout shelters, once secretly built across America in the 1950s during the Cold War, are making a comeback, thanks to the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The crisis, triggered by the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, led to a massive release of radioactivity into the atmosphere and has apparently raised renewed concerns among Americans about the possibility of similar radiation crises, if not atomic Armageddon, in their country.

Robert Vicino, the 58-year-old CEO and founder of Vivos, a company building nuclear bunkers in California, said the number of orders and inquiries his firm has received has increased tenfold since the crisis broke out at the Fukushima plant.

“We have about a 1,000 percent increase in immediate applications for memberships and accommodations in Vivos after the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan,” Vicino said.

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