A Belgian millionaire has allegedly built four bunkers up in the Alpujarra just in case the world ends the day after tomorrow.
The cautious gentleman bought a cortijo with a lot of land in one of the highest parts of the Alpujarra, not far from Bérchules. Each one of the four bunkers, which are in the form of concrete and fibreglass igloos, can reportedly house four people, according to the Ideal provincial daily. They are also stocked with food, books and seeds, as well as plenty of gardening tools, says the same news source.
In fact, thanks to the millionaire spending around 50,000 euros in a small hardware shop in the village, at least one villager is more than happy with Simon Dewulf’s supposed ‘the-day-after’ plans. Simon is said to have paid about 300,000 for the cortijo – which was way over the top even in the heady days of ‘brick glory.’
The deciding factor appears to be that it stands at 2,000 metres above see level – the foreseen giant tidal waves will supposedly reach as far up as 1,600m, so best those that have a front-line beach apartment practice holding their breaths.
Of course, you can’t just start building bunkers without the requisite building permissions – even in the Alpujarra – and the said documents to build underground shelters appear to be lacking. The property owner did obtain a licence to build a sewage-disposal installation. However, when the Guardia Civil and Town Hall officials went up, the bunkers were already covered over, allegedly, so they found nothing.
Simon Dewulf, on the other hand, has a completely different explanation: inspired by the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which preserves a wide variety of plant seeds in an underground cavern. The seeds are duplicate samples, or ‘spare’ copies, of seeds held in gene banks worldwide. He wants to do something similar but on a more modest scale, but instead of close to the Arctic Circle, 2,000 metres above the Mediterranean. A noble cause, without doubt. Readers could imagine the nightmare produced by trying to get that set up via Spanish bureaucracy… a short cut would be comprehensible, wouldn’t it. If somebody hadn’t predicted the end of the world for tomorrow, then work could have gone ahead unhindered.
But if indeed Mr Dewulf has made provisions for The Big Day and if he’s right and we’re wrong, who cares – it won’t be playing on my mind as I play follow-the-bubbles underneath a mile of water; I shall be too busy. And if those that predict that Saturday won’t be following Friday are wrong, well, he’ll still have a nice view for the rest of his years, and somewhere to finish his seed-preservation project with a splendid view.
(News: Berchules, Alpujarra, Granada, Andalucia)