Can You Survive a Nuclear Blast?

To Mods I wasn't sure if this is the right forum or weaponry

Can you survive a nuclear blast?

www.pbs.org..." target='_blank' class='tabOff'/>

Check the blast map per.

Obviously, if a thermonuclear bomb exploded close to your home, you'd have little hope of surviving the blast. But what if one exploded 5 miles away, or 20 miles away? And what about radioactive fallout?


Nuclear Blast Damage



Film footage of actual blast damage

Nothing near here worth bombing. If there was I am sure I wouldn't withstand everything, end of the world stuff scares me

Is better to die in the blast than survive to the radioactive aftermath.
You won't even feel any pain in the blast

Originally posted by Vladtepes
Is better to die in the blast than survive to the radioactive aftermath.
You won't even feel any pain in the blast

Speak for yourself.

Unless someone was hunting deer with nukes there is nothing here to nuke, the WORST thing would be some city nearby getting hit and the closest worth hiting are almost 200 miles away. The biggest city close by is Fort Smith with about 200,000 hardly worth a bomb

The question posed here is incorrect, because it does not specify the power of the hypothetical blast and the placement of the charge. These in fact are critical factors.

There has been an extensive thread on ATS about the aftermath of a "standard issue" 300k device. The firestorm created by combustion of the material on the ground would in fact have more devastaing effect than the blast itself. I remember there was like 20-30 miles radius of total devastation.

More on the issue of energy yield, is the like of "Tsar Bomb" (60 Megaton)would be detonated (unlikely at best), that would mean 100% certain death in a 100 mile radius. I read about two villages destroyed which were located 150 miles away. There was little fallout, because of the massive lead shell of the charge, and it was really high up in the air. There was little combustible material in that Arctic desert, otherwise the firestorm would have been of Biblical proportion and the damage would be even higher.

If placed on the surface, the contamination by the activated dust would be of enormous proportion. By contrast, the mid-air explosion can be relatively clean.

I was in Hiroshima 10 years ago and went to the local museum. There wwas a small number of people whi, incredibly, survived the blast being very close to it. This, of course, was a 20k explosion.

So there are too many variables to be considered.


[edit on 9-11-2004 by Aelita]

Thanks for the info
But the Question still stands maybe if you had looked at the link you might have found it going more in to detail


The fission bomb detonated over Hiroshima had an explosive blast equivalent to 12,500 tons of TNT. A 1 megaton hydrogen bomb, hypothetically detonated on the earth's surface, has about 80 times the blast power of that 1945 explosion.


[edit on 9/11/2004 by Sauron]

Originally posted by Sauron
Thanks for the info
But the Question still stands maybe if you had looked at the link you might have found it going more in to detail

Well than, if restricted to a 1 mt nuke, the answers are on the link you provided, what was the question then?

I'll be honest, I'd rather die in a nuclear blast than be thrown in some detention camp--if there is such a thing.

I look at it this way--as long as you are saved (Christian), it can only be good as you're on your way to heaven.

Originally posted by Amethyst
I'll be honest, I'd rather die in a nuclear blast than be thrown in some detention camp--if there is such a thing.

See, you'll likely won't die right away but will experience a slow and extremely painful process, with massive burns, and if an exposure happened, with internal hemmorage, diarrhea, vomiting, loss of hair and failure of multiple organs.

That's a pretty bad way to check out, IMHO.

Death from radiation can be very slow and painful. If you went out in the blast you wouldnt even know what hit you. If you had a choice of death in the blast or of the radiation trust me you would want the blast.

Radaition can kill more then the blast as evident in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 70,000 AND 40,000 died instantly in the blast. Proof of the damage from radiation can be found in the death tolls for 1950: 340,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Radiation related diseases plagued families for generations. Even children who didn't exist during the bombing were effected with cancerous diereses such as leukaemia

www.pomperaug.com...

Can you survive a Nuclear blast?

Yes, you can.

I do all the time ... at various Kilo and Mega tonnage, dirty or clean.

And I'd like the whole human population to join me in the next one!

The only thing you can do is bend over and kiss your rear goodbye.

Originally posted by pfcret
The only thing you can do is bend over and kiss your rear goodbye.

What motherload of information!
Very deep.

Originally posted by Chuck Stevenson
And I'd like the whole human population to join me in the next one!

Where and when ya holding it?

Can I bring some Hot Pockets?

I still can't comprehend that kind of destruction. I'm walking in D.C. and there is a massive stone wall and I ask my self "If I was surrounded by that wall shouldn't I be able to survive a blast that went off a 100 meters away." I ask myself "What if I was surrounded on all six sides by 10 meters of lead? Could I survive then?" The answer is always no but I just can't fathom how man can create something so powerful and destructive.

Can you guys answer this: How many feet of lead or other substance would you need to be surrounded by to survive a nuclear blast 100 meters away? (Of course you have oxygen and other necessities)

Originally posted by verfed
Can you guys answer this: How many feet of lead or other substance would you need to be surrounded by to survive a nuclear blast 100 meters away? (Of course you have oxygen and other necessities)

Looks like the design of missile silos to me, so you can Google that.

Originally posted by Vladtepes
Is better to die in the blast than survive to the radioactive aftermath.
You won't even feel any pain in the blast

On the contrary, in my NBC classes they taught us that most injuries / deaths from a nuke are not being vaporized (you need to be very very very close to ground zero for that to happen). Oh, and light clothes are much better than dark if you get hit by the initial heat / light effects (so cover up with a white bed sheet if it's handy ).

Most folks die from burns / blunt trauma. Very nasty. Think a bad automobile accident with no nice ambulance coming to rescue you

Radiation is another story. depends on lots of things: Winds, how efficient the bomb yield is (this tells us the really nasty long-term radioactive hazard), how big the bomb was in the first place, how much dirt gets sucked up into the explosion (that's the main short-term hazard..dirt gets pretty safe after 1-2 months), is it raining, etc..etc..

(Dirt = general debris, like wood, concrete, etc.. for the purposes of this discussion).

I'd like to think I am far enough away from the center of the city to survive the blast. I can then move upwind to avoid most of the radiation. If it�s an isolated event, it is even possible to leave the area completely.

Remember a nuke has almost no penetration capabilities...ie..if you sit behind a hill and the nuke goes off on the other side you have a good chance of surviving the blast. If it�s blast wave can�t knock it down you�re ok. Even lying in a ditch is fine.

I talked with a fellow a few years back who was a soldier during the 50�s when they did those above ground tests in New Mexico. You know, the ones we�ve all seen footage of. He told me they played poker in a 7 foot trench and the nuke went off very close (4-5 miles away) and it didn�t even move their cards.

Remember the dirt has a really fast half-life so if you can find shelter for 1-2 months you�ll survive the thing just fine. Just keep out of the hot-spots where the leftover plutonium and uranium land.

First, a correction:

TSAR BOMBA: Was it 50 Megatons or 57?

Shortly after the 30 October test the US estimated the yield at 57 megatons. This value then circulated for 30 years as the actual yield of this device, quoted by Western sources and by the Soviet government. In his 1974 memoirs Khrushchev recollects: "Our scientists calculated in advance that the force of the bomb would equal 50 million tons of TNT. That was in theory. In actual fact, the explosion turned out to be equivalent to 57 million tons" [Khrushchev 1974; pg. 71]. However, all Russian sources since 1991 have consistently used a figure of 50 megatons, not 57. This includes the official Russian listing of all nuclear tests ([RFNC-VNIIEF 1996]), the personal account of the Arzamas-16's accomplishments by its long-time director Yuli Khariton ([Khariton 1993] ), and the account of this device given by its developers Viktor Adamsky and Yuri Smirnov [Adamsky and Smirnov 1994].

TSAR BOMBA was a BIG NUKE. The biggest, in fact. However, is was very inefficient from the standpoint of doing what it was supposed to do - kill people and irradiate land. In fact, the tactics of modern Thermo-nuclear warfare dictate that more -- is less with more. In other words, use 10 100KT nukes instead of a megaton nuke. Google to find out why.

On to the subject: Can you survive a nuclear blast?

Yes.

How?

Depends upon a lot of things. But, let's put this all in perspective: the largest threat you face TODAY is a dirty bomb or a small suitcase nuke detonated in a city-center. If we're talking suitcase nuke (of which there are potentially hundreds floating around), that means we're talking 10-50KT MAXIMUM, and in fact it's going to probably be a lot less (on the order of 1-5KT). THAT BEING SAID, the primary factors are:

-> DISTANCE (Be far away from the heat, pressure and ionizing radiation)
-> TIME (Don't expose yourself to the fallout)
-> PROTECTION (Have enough protection to negate/minimize damages, e.g. KI [potassium iodide - fills receptors for iodine in your thyroid gland so that the radioactive potassium doesn't bind and passes out of your system rather quickly instead of sticking around and mutating you into a lemur], shielding from the fallout, filtered water, etc, etc, etc)

The more of these that you have the better you will end up being. What is far? Well, FAR in distance terms means as far as you need to be to avoid the 20PSI overpressures, the XRAY/GAMMA and ALPHA/BETA radiation and also the kilo-calorie/M heat densities that tend sear flesh to a nice crispy state.

In other words, MILES from ground zero, preferably. But also remember, if we're talking a suitcase nuke, we're assuming that the target is a city center. In that scenario, if you live 2 miles from that city center, you're probably more like an effective 6 or 7 miles due to the simple fact that you have alot of MATERIAL between you and the blast, like:

-> Buildings
-> Ground (hills/peaks)
and
-> Other people (yay!)

That means that -- the more material exists between you and the blast -- the less blast you're going to suck up. The analogy is that you're not going to have the equivalent dose of heat/radiation or pressure that you'd have if you were sitting indian-style on the desert floor 3 miles away from the Trinity blast. That's an entirely different situation.

I believe many more people would perish from the utter chaos that would ensure in the minutes, hours and days following the blast. You've not seen bad drivers until you've seen a scared-to-death semi-truck driver who just saw a large mushroom cloud in his side-mirror. Better believe I'd drop the load and start doing top speed, killing whatever was in my path to get the hell out of dodge.

Further, I believe that fires, building collapses and sustinance problems [food, water, shelter] would cause many more casualties than the actual heat/radiation/pressure that the nuclear blast produced. That, in fact, is also the principal design element of many nuclear devices - the secondary effects.

In the end: prepare, think and act. You're much more likely to survive if you kow what the potential situations are, if you realize that you need to remain calm and collected, and that you take appropriate, measured steps to continue your existence -- you'll be doing better than 95% of the rest of us.

Call me crazy, but I've already talked with my wife about such potential things like a nuclear detonation in Chicago, and what our plans entail. Basically, we're not doing anything but hiding in our basement with lots of water and a ham radio. I don't think driving to Wisconsin is in order until a few weeks later.

[EDIT: the following information was taken from www.ki4u.com... an excellent online reference to nuclear survival skills]

Most fortunately for the future of all living things, the decay of radioactivity causes the sandlike fallout particles to become less and less dangerous with the passage of time. Each fallout particle acts much like a tiny X-ray machine would if it were made so that its rays, shooting out from it like invisible light, became weaker and weaker with time.

Contrary to exaggerated accounts of fallout dangers, the radiation dose rate from fallout particles when they reach the ground in the areas of the heaviest fallout will decrease quite rapidly. For example, consider the decay of fallout from a relatively nearby, large surface burst, at a place where the fallout particles are deposited on the ground one hour after the explosion. At this time one hour after the explosion, assume that the radiation dose rate (the best measure of radiation danger at a particular time) measures 2,000 roentgens per hour (2,000 R/hr) outdoors. Seven hours later the dose rate is reduced to 200 R/hr by normal radioactive decay. Two days after the explosion, the dose rate outdoors is reduced by radioactive decay to 20 R/hr. After two weeks, the dose rate is less than 2 R/hr. When the dose rate is 2 R/hr, people can go out of a good shelter and work outdoors for 3 hours a day, receiving a daily dose of 6 roentgens, without being sickened.

In places where fallout arrives several hours after the explosion, the radioactivity of the fallout will have gone through its time period of most rapid decay while the fallout particles were still airborne. If you are in a location so distant from the explosion that fallout arrives 8 hours after the explosion, two days must pass before the initial dose rate measured at your location will decay to 1/10 its initial intensity.



[edit on 9-11-2004 by NextLevel]

Theoretically most people wont have time , only 13 min window or so till impact right, but if you knew of the indications that an attack was immanent and you wanted to be prepared you can get training from

FEMA LINK

NFA

Yeah, I think so, but I would have to work up to it.

Maybe start off by setting off some firecrackers in my hands, then M-80s, then hand grenades, etc.

I figure once I learn how to withstand the blast of a MOAB or BLU-84, I'll be ready to start looking at going nuclear.

We're not talking about a really big nuke for this, right? If I can handle say, a one kiloton tactical warhead, that still counts and I win, right?