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Caroline Roche answered on 9 Jul 2024:
The worlds first nuclear explosion happened in 1945, since then over 2000 nuclear explosions have occurred. Only two of which were used during a war, which caused devastating destruction and long term health issues.
The average power for a bomb now is about 100-170 kilotons (though there are some much larger) – these could affect most of London. So as long as you weren’t nearby, you could survive a nuclear blast with limited injury though the after affects such as radiation could cause you issues. There is a website called NukeMap that plots out the known nuclear bombs on your chosen location so you can see the effects of the blast radius and fallout.If you spread out all the current nuclear bombs (only about 12,000) around the world and detonated around the same time, you could destroy all life but the earth itself would probably survive though as a dead planet.
You might be able to destroy the earth but it would take a lot of power and set off at a depth that could destroy the earths core so that it would all crumble.
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Tina-Jaine H commented on :
Our best way to understand the effects of nuclear weapons is from the 2 nuclear weapons which were dropped by the USA on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, during world war 2. There have been many detonations of nuclear weapons since then, but they have all been tests, and they are done in remote locations away from people to minimise any harm. So while the tests give information about how the bomb works, they don’t tell us about the effects on people.
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were similar in how they worked, but had different fuel. The one at Hiroshima had uranium fuel. Uranium is a very large atom, which can be split into 2 smaller atoms in a process called fission (latin for breaking apart). The one used at Nagasaki had plutonium for fuel. Plutonium is a man-made atom, slightly bigger than uranium, and can also fission.
The effects of the 2 types of bomb are similar. Firstly, both types of bomb create an absolutely huge explosion, and a huge fireball. At Hiroshima, the fireball was over 1 kilometre across. There is so much energy in the explosion and the fireball that it just disintegrates everything it comes in contact with. Whole buildings disappeared without a trace. The majority of people killed were killed immediately, or in the following few days, by the blast and fire. People who were not quite so close may have suffered serious injuries from flying debris.
There are 2 types of radiation effect, called direct shine, and radiactive decay. The initial nuclear reaction is highly energetic, and will send out a significant amount of “direct shine” radiation. This is the radiation waves emitted directly from the reaction, and it behaves like light – travelling in straight lines, but transmitting straight through lots of materials. When uranium or plutonium fission, the smaller atoms it produces are all highly radioactive. These radioactive materials got widely distributed by the blast. They radioactively decay over time, which produces more radiation for years to come. It contaminates everything – the soil, the water, the food. So anyone who continued to live in the area, would still be getting a radiation dose from coming in contact with that material years later. But it would be a smaller and more gradual dose than the direct shine during the blast.
We know from this experience that both direct shine radiation, and exposure to radioactive materials, can kill people within a few days if they get a very high dose, or can cause longer term health issues like cancer if they survive that phase. Being close enough to the blast will cause a very high dose of direct shine, You could also get a high short term dose from radioactive materials if you are close enough to inhale a lot of it at the time. But if you live in an area contaminated with radioactive materials, you might keep on getting a small dose all the time for years, and the effects can build up. Both shine and radioactive materials can cause various types of cancer, and some other health issues like cataracts.
There were a very small number of babies born with a condition called microcephaly. This only affected babies who were in the womb at the time, and their mothers got very high radiation doses during the last 3 months of pregnancy. This condition involves the baby having an underdeveloped head, and they don’t survive very long. It can happen naturally, but the rate was above normal for those affected by radiation. It has been proven that there is no effect for babies who were conceived some time after their parents were exposed to radiation. Stories of children being born with strange abnormalities years later, are just a myth. That didn’t happen.
The number of deaths in Hiroshima was much higher than Nagasaki, because the bomb went off mid air right above the centre of the city. The bomb at Nagasaki was a bigger, higher energy bomb, but it missed the city centre, and went off over the outskirts of the city. This shows how much difference being a few kilometres way makes.
All the nuclear weapons owned by nuclear armed countries now are fission bombs, with plutonium fuel. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were dropped from planes. Modern ones are usually incorporated in missiles capable of firing them at targets thousands of kilometres away. UK is one of 8 or 9 countries that have nuclear weapons.
There is another type of nuclear weapon, called a dirty bomb. This concept involves a conventional explosive, like Semtex, plus some radioactive waste. This type of bomb wouldn’t have such a big blast, but would spread harmful radioactive material around. No country governments own dirty bombs (to our knowledge), but it is possible that terrorist groups could make one.