Poland to release mobile app showing residents nearest bomb shelter

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Warsaw has drawn up an application for mobile devices that would show residents the location of the nearest bomb shelter, State Fire Service Chief Commandant Andrzej Bartkowiak said on Friday.

"Within a few weeks, an application, indicating the nearest shelter place for residents, could be made available. It is ready," Polish radio station RMF FM quoted Bartkowiak as saying.

The chief commandant explained that the app would be integrated with the pre-existing 112 emergency app, noting that it was now at the final stage of being checked and tested before release.

Furthermore, he stressed that Warsaw's latest audit of bomb shelters revealed that there was "a lot to be done" to enhance this infrastructure, especially since the issue had been sidelined for the past three decades.

"Population protection law is being prepared. I think it will be in the Sejm [Polish parliament's lower house] in a few weeks. It provides for funds to put things in order in the shelters," Bartkowiak said.

Warsaw currently has 62,000 shelters at its disposal, according to Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski.

This number means that this figure would only be able to accommodate around 1.3 million people or just over 3% of the population.

Back in mid-November, two missiles fell in the Polish village of Przewodów in the Lubelskie Voivodeship near the border with Ukraine, prompting Warsaw to call for an emergency national security council meeting.

However, NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said in the aftermath that the explosion that hit Poland was "likely caused" by a Ukrainian air defense missile fired to intercept an incoming Russian missile.

"Our preliminary analysis suggests that the incident was likely caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks," the NATO chief told reporters after an emergency meeting of the alliance's Security Council.

Due to uncertainty regarding the party that fired the missile, Poland suggested at the time invoking NATO's Article 4, which means that the alliance's members "consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened."

The Russian Defense Ministry responded by saying that Poland's about "Russian missiles" were a deliberate provocation to try and escalate the situation.

"Statements by the Polish media and officials about the alleged fall of 'Russian' missiles in the area of the settlement of Przewodow is a deliberate provocation in order to escalate the situation. No strikes were made against targets near the Ukrainian-Polish state border by Russian weapons," the ministry said at the time.