Grim map shows the complete and utter devastation of a nuclear attack on the United States
Scientific American investigated the fallout from such an attack and found the results to be exceedingly grim. 'Devastating' impact: Nuclear war in US would wipe out 300 million, report says.
By Katherine Fidler
April 4, 2024
More than 300 million people would die from radiation if a hostile nation decided to take out the United States’ nuclear arsenal – including those living in Canada and Mexico.
The casualties would include up to two million people dying from acute radiation poisoning around the country’s nuclear weapons silos, many of whom do not realise they’re at risk.
Five of 50 states are currently home to the nation’s 450 missile launch facilities – Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota.
US announces deadly new nuclear weapon days after China announced warhead expansion.
At those sites, ‘Minutemen’ intercontinental ballistic missiles are kept underground on continuous launch alert, a pointed deterrent to nuclear attack by a foreign enemy.
This means if a nation were to attack one of the silos, it would have to attack them all, otherwise retaliation would be swift and catastrophic.
In the 1970s, during the Cold War, air force chief of staff General Lew Allen said the silos offered a ‘great sponge’ of targets to ‘absorb’ Soviet weapons – and that it would require such a massive attack, no one would even attempt it.
But what if they did?
A nuclear attack would be devastating (Getty)
A study by Scientific American investigated the fallout from such an attack, and found the results to be exceedingly grim.
To reach the buried silos, each attack would require the detonation of one or two nuclear warheads – 450 times over.
Writing in the magazine, Princeton’s nuclear weapons expert Dr Sebastien Philippe said: ‘The resulting nuclear explosions will generate gargantuan fireballs that will vaporize everything in their surroundings and produce destructive shock waves capable of wrecking the missiles in their launch tubes.”
‘Because the warheads will detonate close to the ground, the nuclear fireballs will suck in soil and other debris and mix it with radioactive bomb effluents as they rise in the air.
‘About 10 minutes after detonation, the mixture of debris and fission products will form miles-high radioactive mushroom clouds, which will then be dispersed by high-altitude winds, leading to fallout on downwind areas.’
That’s just in the first few minutes. It doesn’t get better after that.
‘Because of the great variability in wind directions, the entire population of the contiguous US and the most populated areas of Canada, as well as the northern states of Mexico, would be at risk of lethal fallout – more than 300 million people in total,’ said Dr Philippe.
‘The inhabitants of the US Midwest and of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario in Canada could receive outdoor whole-body doses of radiation several times higher than the minimum known to result in certain death.’
Cheery.
The casualties are assessed by radiation risk, measured in grays (Gy) and ranging from 0.001Gy, the annual safe limit for the public, to 84Gy, causing death within days of exposure.
The study found that, depending on the weather, up to 300 million people across North America would receive a deadly radiation dose under the multi-attack scenario – or equivalent to more than 90% of the US population.
Which may make Alaska and Hawaii start to look like very attractive states.