Humanity’s most destructive weapons have been used in war only once, when the US demolished Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, with two atomic bombs at the end of the Second World War in 1945. Such explosions play out differently but can be as deadly and destructive, potentially exposing more people to lethal radiation doses, Spaulding says. The range of radiation exposure could extend tens of miles from the epicenter, so people who survive the blast could later be felled by the radiation.ĭrikakis’ example focused on what’s called a “strategic” nuke deployed on an ICBM, but there are also “tactical” nukes, which are dropped by a plane onto a battlefield and which can blow up on the ground. Radiation exposure through the skin or inhalation can have many health effects, including skin burns, organ damage, and cancer. While it is the main source of danger in a non-nuclear explosion-like the one that rocked Beirut in 2020, which was caused by a large quantity of flammable ammonium nitrate stored at the city’s port-nuclear weapons also throw out ionizing radiation and heat, followed by radioactive fallout. Strong structures made of concrete with metal reinforcement and designed for seismic safety would survive the pressures the team modeled, he says, but those pressures would be enough to destroy most traditional, wood-framed houses and brick structures without reinforcement.Īnd he points out that the blast wave is only part of the story. This shouldn’t be construed as a way to be safe in a nuclear explosion, says Dylan Spaulding, an earth scientist and nuclear expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists. (Even people at a bank would have to get into the vault to be in the safest place people in a subway would get the most benefit in a station that’s very deep underground.) Most people live in timber-frame or other less-armored buildings. Hardly anyone lives or works in nearly windowless reinforced-concrete buildings, nor in the vicinity of a concrete bunker. Drikakis/University of Nicosiaīut let’s be honest: Most people, even in the moderate damage zone, won’t survive. ![]() Shown are the contours of the maximum airspeed attained during the first 10 seconds after the blast wave enters the window overpressure equals 5 pounds per square inch. They studied how the supersonic shock waves would propagate through a three-room concrete structure situated in the moderate damage zone and assumed that the concrete was strong enough to withstand the 3 to 5 pounds per square inch of pressure from the blast wave. Drikakis and Kokkinakis simulated the blast effects of a 750-kiloton warhead-like the hundreds of larger bombs in Russia’s arsenal-delivered by an intercontinental ballistic missile, which would detonate about 3 kilometers above a metropolis. Since no one’s going around testing nukes on buildings these days, this kind of research employs computer simulations. He and his colleague Ioannis Kokkinakis focused on this area and published their work in the Physics of Fluids journal last week. Scientists and artists developed the metaphorical clock to communicate risks posed by global, human-caused problems including climate change, but the dangers of nuclear war have been a major focus since its inception.ĭrikakis combed through scientific research on what the aftermath of nuclear weapon use would look like, and he spotted a gap: There’s little knowledge of the effects on humans indoors in the “moderate damage zone” a few miles from the epicenter, far enough away that buildings might not get blown to bits. His grim research comes just as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that it has ticked the Doomsday Clock forward, to 90 seconds until an apocalyptic midnight, citing the increasing nuclear tensions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. ![]() “I think this kind of study raises awareness within the wider population that nuclear explosions are not a joke.” But now we’re seeing the discussion starting again, and there’s a debate about the potential for nuclear war in Ukraine,” says Drikakis. “People have forgotten the devastating impacts nuclear war can have. Dimitris Drikakis, a fluid dynamics researcher at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus, led the study both to illuminate the ongoing risks of nuclear escalation and to examine how one might have a chance at survival if the unthinkable should come to pass.
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