The shelters found in the city of Almería were built in the year 1938 by the local architect Guillermo Langle Rubio with the help of the engineers Carlos Fernández Celaya and José Fornielesafter having suffered 52 aerial bombardments in the city. In a very short time, these heroes managed to open more than 4 kilometers of underground shelters that could shelter around 40,000 people. These infrastructures were recovered and opened to the public in 2007 and today constitute one of the most important and best preserved examples in all of Europe.
In this network of tunnels dug nine meters deep numerous underground galleries extended to the main neighborhoods of the city with more than a hundred entrances built with concrete blocks and buttresses. Some noble houses, churches and the Town Hall had their own entrances and when the dreaded siren sounded they would wave a black flag at the entrance with the word “Refuge” highlighted with white letters. Inside, not all the tunnels were connected, but they were all two meters wide, with continuous benches on the sides and barrel vaults. Along the corridor there were a series of rooms with warehouses, water and the operating room, the only room that had lighting, which was donated by the doctor Eusebio Álvaro to perform amputations, operations and emergency deliveries. Today, we can visit about a kilometer of this bunker and contemplate objects and inscriptions left by the people of Almería who suffered this sad episode in our history.< /p>
Tuesday to Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and Sundays from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Other nearby places of interest are the Jairán Cisterns, the Purchena Gate and the Almería Heritage Interpretation Center.