The Effects Of Nuclear War Essay Research — страница 3

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safety of the staff, which would cause a serious bottle-neck and delay in most hospitals. The result of this huge overload of cases is that most of the injured would die, even though prompt treatment might have saved them. Relatively few would even get reached by rescue teams before they were moribund or dead; the majority would probably die in hours or days without any analgesic, and without food, water, or any assistance. A ONE-MEGATON BOMB DETONATED AT GROUND LEVEL If the bomb exploded at ground level instead of high above the city, the main difference would be an enormous crater four hundred metres across and seventy metres deep. All the dirt, rock, or masonry excavated would be made into radioactive dust and small debris. The larger particles would quickly descend in the

immediate vicinity, and the finer particles and dust would descend in minutes or hours, mainly downwind from the site of the explosion. The radiation dose to people exposed to this fallout would depend upon many factors, and would be enough to be lethal to anyone in the open or in a frame house for several hundred kilometres downwind. A simple basement “fallout shelter” would afford good protection. It would be necessary to spend a week or more in a fall-out shelter, and it would be impossible to judge when it would be safe to leave without a radiation survey meter or advice from public health authorities. The area of blast damage would be smaller by perhaps a half, compared with an air-burst, though an earthquake effect would add to structural damage to buildings. The number

of immediate deaths might be about half of those from an air-burst, but unless survivors could find protection from fall-out there would be many deaths from radiation sickness days or weeks after the bomb. A TEN-KILOTON BOMB DETONATED AT GROUND LEVEL If a bomb in the 10- to 20-kiloton range were to be exploded near ground level or in a ship in the harbour, the areas of blast, heat, and burn damage would be much smaller, perhaps reaching out to only one-tenth of the distances estimated for the one-megaton air-burst. The numbers of immediately killed and severely injured people would be counted in thousands, not hundreds of thousands. Exploded on land, the bomb would vaporize all people and buildings in the immediate vicinity, and make a crater that might be as much as one hundred

metres in diameter. If in the harbour, there would be a crater in the harbour floor and a tidal wave, but the outstanding feature would be a radioactive downpour because much of the water in the harbour would be made radioactive and thrown high into the air as fine and coarse spray. The explosion at ground level of this type of bomb would probably not cause a firestorm, so rescue operations for the injured might have some degree of success. In either case, radioactive fallout would be serious, and might make the city, and an area of countryside stretching tens of kilometres downwind, uninhabitable for weeks or years. There would be a number of deaths from radiation sickness, for which there is really no effective medical treatment. The total amount of radioactivity might be

comparable with the Chernobyl disaster, more or less depending on many circumstances. THE ENHANCED RADIATION WEAPON OR “NEUTRON BOMB” This is a small “hydrogen bomb” in the 1 to 10 kiloton range without the outer casing of uranium, which, in an ordinary hydrogen bomb stops the neutrons that are formed, and converts them into additional explosive power. The neutron bomb thus emits a spray of neutrons that is lethal for a distance of a few hundred metres. These neutrons, unlike the X-rays from the explosion, penetrate a considerable thickness of concrete or steel protection, like defence posts or the sides of a tank. They are designed for “battlefield” use, not for use against cities. It is commonly said that neutron bombs spare buildings, but we believe this is a

misconception. The blast effect would be reduced by about half, and would still be enormous. HOW COULD THIS SORT OF “ONE-BOMB” SCENARIO DEVELOP? It is worth considering what circumstances might result in one or just a few nuclear bombs exploding, as opposed to a major nuclear war. We hope, but we cannot be sure, that a nuclear attack by one of the “great powers” against a smaller country (which has been threatened several times since 1945) would never be carried out for any reason whatever. There have been serious risks of war involving smaller military powers with nuclear weapons, such as India, Pakistan, and Israel. Clear or veiled threats of nuclear attack have been made by these countries, and might be again. Such use would most probably be directed at cities, and the