For two weeks, the war in Ukraine has made the anxiety-inducing sound of warning sirens ring out to us, prompting the population to rush to shelter. In Quebec, the 1,500 such devices installed by National Defense no longer exist. They were dismantled with the end of the Cold War. From now on, it is with digital applications that our governments inform the public of a potential danger.
Posted at 4:35 p.m.
At the beginning of the 1960s, at the time of the confrontation between the West and the Eastern bloc, led by the former USSR, national defense audiovisual productions sought to raise public awareness of the risks of a nuclear attack, against the backdrop of the sound of warning sirens. The missile crisis, which the Soviets had installed in Cuba, was then in full swing. This soundscape haunted the citizens of the time.