Ashort war has devastated the northern hemisphere, poisoned the atmosphere and killed billions. Australians are among the last people alive as a radioactive cloud drifts closer.

This is the premise of Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel On the Beach, but almost 70 years later, renewed fear of Armageddon has prompted the super-rich and the anxious to look to the Antipodes as the ideal place to live out the end of the world in style.

A recent scientific study in the journal Global Challenge highlighted Tasmania, Australia’s southernmost state, as one of the best places on the planet to do so. Estate agents there say there is a surge of sales to foreign buyers and rising interest in properties with enough land to grow crops and run livestock.

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