Where is the safest place to go in a nuclear attack?

Airlines are taking steps to ensure they can keep flying in the event of a nuclear war, with The Telegraph reporting that "special insurance policies" are being drawn up to address the possibility of conflicts escalating in Ukraine and Kashmir.

Gallagher, the world's largest aviation insurance broker, began working on the scheme when Vladimir Putin threatened to deploy Russia's atomic weapons against Ukraine in 2022, and its plans have been "given fresh impetus" by the recent clash between nuclear powers India and Pakistan over Kashmir.

The overhaul would abandon Cold War-era restrictions that would "force the grounding of all civil aircraft worldwide in the event of a single nuclear detonation". Instead, in the event of a limited, regional nuclear war, planes would be permitted to keep flying outside the impact zone. For those left on the ground, here are some of the safest places to be in the event of a nuclear blast.

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Safest places in buildings

A study published in the Physics of Fluids journal examined the safest places to take shelter within a building should a devastating attack occur.

Researchers from the University of Nicosia in Cyprus used advanced computer modelling to investigate what impact a 750-kiloton-rated nuclear blast wave would have on humans inside a building close to the fictional attack. Their results suggested that "even if you're hiding indoors" and relatively far from the explosion, the blast's high-speed winds "could still be enough to kill or seriously injure you", reported the tech and science site Gizmodo.

For that reason, the most dangerous places to hide are likely to be "in the direct vicinity of the windows, door openings and hallways, since this is where the air will be most funnelled through in the shockwave". Following the same logic, the study concluded that the best place to shelter would be "in a sturdy building at the far end of the room from any door or window, and ideally in a corner", said Newsweek.

Safest buildings

Ready.gov, an official website of the US government, advises that people "get inside the nearest building" should nuclear sirens suddenly sound – but not all buildings offer equal protection.

Concrete-reinforced buildings are generally thought to be the safest option as they would "largely remain intact" should a blast occur – however "not necessarily everyone inside them would survive", said Gizmodo.

In "Protect and Survive", a UK public information campaign that ran in the early 1980s, people were advised that, if they live in a block of flats five storeys high or more, it is best not to shelter on the top two floors. The basement or ground floor will give you the best protection, it added, and central corridors on lower floors will provide good protection.

For city-dwellers, the best places to shelter include underground spaces, reported Newsweek. "One would be much safer" in an "underground purpose-built blast or fallout shelter," Jack L. Rozdilsky, an associate professor of disaster and emergency management at York University in Canada, told the site. But "even locations like basements of buildings or deep sections of subway tunnels would provide better protection than being in buildings above the surface."

In 2022, the Daily Express reported that the safest places in the UK would be those furthest from major cities. The 20 locations recommended included Cornwall, Folkestone, Skegness and Anglesey.

Safest countries

The countries "with the best hope of at least seeing their civilisation survive" during the 10 years after a nuclear war would be Argentina and Australia, said The Times.

A 2022 study published in Nature Food suggests that these two countries – and several others across central Africa – would be able to maintain life because "they already grew more resistant crops, such as wheat, in large quantities and also had low populations".

However, it wouldn't necessarily be "peaches and cream" for Australia, said Professor Alan Robock, from Rutgers University in New Jersey, because "you can imagine there will be flotillas of hungry refugees from Asia on their way there".

So perhaps you could consider Iceland? The Smart Survivalist named the Nordic country as the safest place in the event of a nuclear war. "Because Iceland is isolated from the rest of the world by the North Atlantic Ocean, it would be very difficult for a nuclear missile to reach Iceland without being detected first," it said.

Also, it added, Iceland generates all of its electricity from geothermal sources, so even if the entire electrical grid went down, Iceland "would still have power thanks to its natural hot springs".

The site also noted that Canada has a "large landmass and population spread out over a wide area", making it "less likely that a single nuclear strike could wipe out the entire country".

Modelling by The Guardian in 2016 found that, "should atomic annihilation be on the cards", the safest places to live would be Antarctica, because the "sub-zero continent" is "miles from anywhere", or Easter Island in the South Pacific, which is more than 2,000 miles from South America.

In the US, modelling by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst starts with the midwest as a "prime target" as the country's intercontinental ballistic missile launch facilities are based in the region, and "taking them out early would be a strategic advantage for any foreign adversary", said the Daily Mail.

Landlocked states like Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri would also be "decimated in the immediate aftermath of the explosion", the researchers said, while coastal states such as Oregon, Washington, Florida and New York "might be able to bide their time for at least four days, before radiation poisoning spread to those areas".

With mounting anxieties around the risk of a nuclear conflict, some countries have begun ramping up preparations in case the worst happens. In Switzerland, the government last year announced plans to modernise the country's extensive system of bomb shelters, due to the "global security situation", the Zurich-based Tages Anzeiger reported. The work is projected to cost 220 million Swiss francs (£198 million).