See What a Nuclear Bomb Will Do to Your Hometown
In the wake of a horrific false missile warning in Hawaii last week, Americans are asking one of our favorite questions: “What if this happened here?” Although statistically your hometown, is probably not a nuclear purpose, NUKEMAP historian Alex Vellerstayna shows you how it will look.
The effect of a nuclear explosion depends on many factors, such as the size of the bomb, the target, and the wind. NUKEMAP allows you to experiment with all kinds of nuclear scenarios, using statistics for various known nuclear weapons, determining which areas will be completely burned and which areas will simply be covered in radiation. You can get an estimate of the death toll, how many local schools and hospitals will be destroyed, and how today’s weather will affect rainfall. You can use the sister site NUKEMAP MISSILEMAP to select from existing and historical rocket launch sites.
While you can use this tool to imagine, for example, a French bomb destroying downtown Cleveland, most places in the world are unlikely to ever become nuclear targets other than total global nuclear annihilation (in which case some of us might rather burn out in the first attack instead of continuing to fight after the apocalypse). The 2015 Nuclear Experts Group estimated that the highest nuclear risks currently lie in India, Pakistan, the Middle East and in the immediate vicinity of North Korea.
If you live in the mainland United States, you are not within range of the successfully tested North Korean missiles. The Washington Post said last May that even an attack on Hawaii would be a stretch.
An attack on a country with global potential – without long-term allies, it’s just Russia or China – is likely to target the US’s own nuclear strongholds , which are mostly located in sparsely populated areas for this very reason. But other key military targets are located close to populated areas; The Pentagon, pictured above as the epicenter of a Russian ICBM strike, sits right in the center of Washington, DC.
To avoid retaliation for such an attack, any attack on the United States or its allies would require the destruction of the entire US nuclear arsenal, including missiles stationed on submarines in secret locations. Since this is almost impossible, there is good news for most people: while several countries could theoretically blow up your city, none of them want to.
NUKEMAP | Alex Wellerstein via Digital Trends