The 5 Safest Places on Earth

Security is a critical component of risk management. If company employees and assets are not considered safe and sound, little else matters. Some locations take protection to the extreme, however.
Of course, many military facilities are incredibly hardened, of course, but there are a handful of other quirkier institutions (as well as one world-famous bank) that virtually guarantee their people and property are secure — both from manmade and natural threats.

Here is a list of those five safest places on earth.

5. Istanbul’s Earthquake-Safe Airport
2010 has been the year of the earthquake. The decade began with the devastating quake in Haiti that killed hundreds of thousands. Soon after, seismic activity in Chile, China, Mexicali and New Zealand rocked all regions of the globe.

4. Bahnhof’s Underground Data Center
Swedish internet service provider Bahnhof set out to find a safe place for its data. For them, an old nuclear bomb shelter 100 feet below a mountain in Stockholm seemed safe enough. And its not just the ISP that thinks so.

3. The Terror-Proof 7 World Trade Center
Along with the Two Towers, the nearby 7 World Trade Center building was also destroyed on 9/11. Unlike the larger structures, however, this one has been rebuilt. It maintains the original name, but when it comes to protection, this one will not be destroyed.

2. The Svalsgaard Doomsday Seed Vault
Deep beneath the ice of a remote, arctic Norwegian island lies humanity’s last hope to restore agricultural production if any worst-case scenario ever happens. From climate change and nuclear winter to global pandemic and asteroid strikes, humankind has little trouble envisioning any number of catastrophes that could qualify as extinction-level events. But this seed bank now houses the genetic code for all of the critical crops we would need to reboot civilization.

1. Fort Knox
Everyone knows that Fort Knox, the colloquial name for the U.S. Bullion Depository, is where the United States houses much of its gold. But did you know that the nearly 5,000 tons of precious metal valued at some $137 billion stored there is protected by a 22-ton door? Good luck getting through that.

by Jared Wade on November 17, 2010