Saturday, March 24, 2012

Tiong Bahru Air Raid Shelter [17/03]

It started with a reporting by the Straits Times on the opening of the air raid shelter in Tiong Bahru for visitors. Members of the public who would like to join in the visit can drop an email to the person in charge. After confirming with FP on it, I immediately contacted the person. She mentioned that all the slots were taken and I will have to wait 2 months for the next available visit.

And today is the day! We were told to rendezvous at Tiong Bahru market at 10am. Tiong Bahru is a fascinating place with many old residential buildings.

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At both sides of the entrance to the market, we have poster boards explaining on the air-raid shelter below.

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Apparently, the air raid shelters were constructed before World War II.

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After a 20mins introduction, we were led from the market towards Blk 78 Guan Chuan Street. The place where we see below is actually where the main entrance to the air raid shelter is. It is a very wide entrance, but has been sealed off now.

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And we continue walking down the path.

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And here is the current entrance.

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The interiors of the shelter is very well maintained.

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Words were written on the walls.

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And here we have the guide explaining to us the storage utilization of the air raid shelter.

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Notice at the top are bricks printed with the word 'Alexandra'. These bricks were made by ABC - Alexandra Brickworks Company.

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And we arrive at a junction.

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There are many of these cells where people can stay in there.

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And even more shelves.

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The tour ended at 11am.