I had a vivid dream last night that I was in a city that had been bombed (must be all this talk of war with Iraq). There was a flash of bright light and then the sky became dark. It was warm and windy. Tornadoes formed and the sky had flashes of orange and red in it. We ran to a building and hid in a stairwell.
So how close to the real thing was my dream? How far away do you have to be from where the bomb goes off to survive?
Here’s an eyewitness account of the atomic explosion over Hiroshima.
Regarding how far from the explosion you’d have to be - here’s a sight that lets you display on a map of your town, the damage at various distances from an explosion of given size.
Depends on how close you are to the detonation. Click here to try out a nuclear-blast simulator that provides rough estimates of survival rates and damage based on distance from ground zero.
And of course I’m beaten to posting the exact same link. Damn Google! Search faster!
There’s a book called Unforgettable Fire that was published in the early 80s, that you might find useful. I was able to find it at my local library with no trouble. Anyway, it’s a collection of artwork and recollections by Hiroshima survivors (And I think a few Nagasaki survivors, but I can’t recall), describing the bombing. It’s a facinating read. One thing that I recall is that a quite few people described the color of the nuclear “flash” as being a sort of blueish-red color.
Then of course, there’s the Japanese animated film Barefoot Gen, which is about Hiroshima. The bombing itself is somewhat stylized, but the aftermash scenes are about right, from what I understand.
Well, 'hope I’ve been of some help,
Ranchoth
Possible spoilers
In Tom Clancy’s The Sum of All Fears, there’s actually a couple of chapters about the detonation of a nuclear bomb–how it works, and what happens close by. What takes quite a lot of pages in the book takes milliseconds in real life.
I always found the film Threads to be a fairly horrendous reproduction (along with the US take on it, the name of which escapes me, annoyingly).
Is that The Day After? I thought Threads did a better job of it.
Me too, Lsura; the US version was still chilling, and had much better special effects (unsurprisingly, since Threads was a 1980s British TV movie, IIRC), but I thought Threads handled the human suffering and long-term nightmare much more scarily.
I wrote a report on the effects of a one ton nuclear blast on my city, there was a web site that would draw you the maps but I forgot where it was.
Handy, I genuinely mean no offence, but what was the point of that? You once wrote a paper, but you have nothing more to say than that (any quotes? conclusions? I’m sure there was some good stuff in there), and then you vaguely try to recall a link that someone has already posted in this thread.
My carefully considered opinion is that it would definitely suck.
To maintain reign as the most prolific SDMB poster.
Well, it’s gonna suck obviously.
At the same time the aftermath depends on how big of a nuke it is and where it is set off.
My Dad had the job for a while, during the old Cold War days, of figuring out where and what the U.S.S.R would drop on the U.S. and what the effects would be. I asked him once what would happen if the U.S.S.R. nuked Kirkland AFB. His answer was that our house at the time, about 20 miles away and hidden by a couple hills, would still be standing with all the windows broken but had a good chance of catching fire. He also said that most of the people in our area would survive the original attack but would die in the aftermath. He also said that if it ever happened driving west would help alot because you could, possibly, get out of the radiation area by going west.
Note, he was talking about a limited attack on Kirkland and not a full on nuclear war.
Slee
Dear Crusoe, because I made a possible map & description of what would happen, if by chance, such a thing happened:
http://www.pacificgrove.com/localnew/blast2001.html
Thank you. I was wondering why you didn’t post that in the first place instead of just mentioning that you’d done it and lost it.
*The Day After * was a 1980’s US made for tv movie and the special effects were pretty crappy, plus the science shown in the story was downright ludicrous.
Yes, I’ve seen it several times. It’s still better effects-wise than Threads.