Taipei air raid shelter accessibility found critically low

Following recent urban resilience exercises in Taiwan, Wu Hsin-tai, a Taipei City Council candidate, reported significant failures in the availability of air raid shelters. An investigation conducted near the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) revealed that out of 41 officially registered shelter locations, only two were actually accessible to the public. Many sites were found to be locked, with residents often unable to provide access to basement facilities.

Wu noted that a broader audit of nearly 500 shelter points across Taipei indicates an overall usability rate of only 10% to 20%. She criticized the government for focusing on traffic control during drills rather than ensuring the functionality of life-saving infrastructure.

In response to these findings, Wu has proposed five requirements for the Taipei City Government, including conducting thorough inspections of high-risk areas, updating official maps to reflect real-time availability, and removing unusable private basement locations from public records. Additionally, she called for the integration of communication resilience education, such as preparing for internet outages and utilizing mesh networks, into official disaster prevention guidelines.