Not that it’s going to happen, but because it could.

5. With a 10- kiloton bomb, everyone within the outermost ring in the image above would receive third-degree burns from thermal radiation.

4. If the bomb is detonated in the air, as opposed to on the ground, 50% to 90% of people in this area will die from radiation exposure without medical treatment.

3. The blast sends a shock wave that would destroy nearly everyone and everything within this first ring.

1. The initial shock wave lessens after the first ring, but will still demolish most residential buildings and cause widespread casualties.

Fireball : Whether the nuke is detonated in the air or on the ground, the initial threat is the fireball, which can reach tens of millions of degrees. “If you’re within that, you’re dead,” Schlegel­milch says. : Whether the nuke is detonated in the air or on the ground, the initial threat is the fireball, which can reach tens of millions of degrees. “If you’re within that, you’re dead,” Schlegel­milch says. According to an online simulation created by Alex Wellerstein at the Stevens Institute of Technology (it’s interactive, scary, and fun), a 10-kiloton bomb would produce a fireball with a radius of 500 to 650 feet.

Shock wave : After the fireball comes the shock wave, or air blast. If detonated in the air, that same 10-kiloton bomb would destroy most buildings and kill nearly everyone within 0.38 miles of ground zero. The effect is reduced by 23 percent if the detonation occurs on the ground. The shock wave weakens from there, but can still take out residential buildings and cause mass casualties two to two and a half times the initial spread of the shock wave, according to Wellerstein’s projections.

Radiation :

If you survive the fireball and shock wave, now you have to avoid the radiation. Exposure within three quarters of a mile of that 10-kiloton bomb, Wellerstein shows, will kill up to 90 percent of people without medical treatment. For a quarter-mile past that, your chances of survival increase, but you’ll get third-degree burns, which you probably won’t feel, because the radiation also kills your pain receptors.

Fallout : If the attack comes from the ground, dirt and debris are irradiated and shot into the air by the explosion, forming the classic mushroom cloud. Winds can carry the radiation, called nuclear fallout, from that cloud tens or hundreds of miles away, depending on the size of the bomb and the strength of the wind. As it falls back to earth, it sickens more people.

How Radiation Causes Cancer





Roughly 15 percent of the energy released in the initial blast and fallout of an atomic bomb is high-frequency ionizing radiation. Unlike other forms of radiation, such as visible light and microwaves, ionizing radiation is fast and energetic enough to strip electrons from molecules, including the ones that make up the cells in your body. That radiation randomly damages the DNA in your cells—as if you’ve been shot with millions of tiny pins. (UV rays are borderline ionizing, which is why you can get skin cancer from tanning.) If ionizing radiation strips enough electrons from your DNA, or if you’re unlucky and it hits the wrong places in your genome, the genes that control cell growth can start to function abnormally. Certain cells divide out of control, causing tumors, leukemias, or other cancers. The risk is particularly high for children, whose cells have divided less often and are more likely to run amok if damaged.

What You Should Do



