how many people would die if...?

Question

three nukes were detonated in the united States in New York City, Los Angeles , and Chicago, also how many people would die or be injured of radiation. Would the radiation spread throughout the country?

Answer 1

Tell me the kiloton yield and whether it was ground-level detonation or air burst, all these variable have different levels of death and destruction....

5 megatons (the strategic nukes average 500 kilotons, i used 5 megatons for this example)

Thermal radiation radius (3rd degree burns) : 22.6 kilometers
Air blast radius (widespread destruction) : 12.3 kilometers
Air blast radius (near-total fatalities) : 4.7 kilometers
Ionizing radiation radius (500 rem) : 4.2 km
Fireball duration : 9.3 seconds
Fireball radius (minimum) : 820 meters
Fireball radius (airburst) : 1 kilometer
Fireball radius (ground-contact airburst) : 1.3 kilometers

The first air blast is 4.6psi overpressure, which is sufficient to collapse most residential and industrial structures. Note that exposed humans can actually survive such a blast, about 1/3 bar above standard. However, that much pressure exerted against the face of a building exerts very high force (a 40 foot tall, 50 foot wide structure would be hit with more than 600 tons-force).

The second air blast category is 20psi overpressure, which is sufficient to destroy virtually any large above-ground structure and cause nearly 100% fatalities.

Ionizing radiation is electromagnetic radiation of sufficient frequency (and hence energy) to literally "knock off" electrons from atoms, thus ionizing them. Ionizing radiation is extremely dangerous but it is also strongly absorbed by air, unlike thermal radiation. At the 500rem dosage, mortality is between 50% and 90%, although this can be mitigated with prompt and sophisticated medical care (which may not be available in the aftermath of a nuclear attack).

A convenient rule of thumb for estimating the short-term fatalities from all causes due to a nuclear attack is to count everyone inside the 5 psi blast overpressure contour around the hypocenter as a fatality. In reality, substantial numbers of people inside the contour will survive and substantial numbers outside the contour will die, but the assumption is that these two groups will be roughly equal in size and balance out. This completely ignores any possible fallout effects.

The fallout will follow the jet streams, the LA fallout will spread across most of the country, missing the northwest and northern plains.

Answer 2

This is an awful scenerio to think about but not as ridiculous as it may sound. If you think of the population of New York which is over 18,976,457 in population and Los Angeles is an est. of over 3,819,951 according to their Census in 2003, and Chicago's population is 12,419,293 which is considered the fifth largest city in the US..add them up and this is your total just in these cities alone that would be deceased right on the spot if a nuclear missile hit these cities. Now this isn't considering the neighboring cities and towns or suburbs that line these great cities. Now I'm no expert on the spread of the radiation that follows but what I have read it depends on the wind speed and the direction the wind is going at this time on where the radiation fall out would occur but never the less there would be a devastation through out our continent. For example: I live in a town that is 20 miles from a nuclear power plant. The experts have told us here that if something would go wrong at the plant that our town would be in harms way. So go figure. Hope this has put a little light on your question.

Answer 3

What if? Wont happen. Patriot Anti-Missile System. To drop a nuke on any of those cities it would require someone to fly an unauthorized plane in U.S airspace which happens to be very heavily monitored especially since 9/11. That would mean that they would have to out manuever a lot of F-22 s which there is no way so ha! Or at least I hope thats true.

Answer 4

It would depend on whether they were dirty or clean nukes, and the yield fo the nukes. Islamic terrorists are threatening to detonate nukes with biological warfre. That would be even worse. Yet the liberals want us to get out of the middle east and leave ourselves wide open for them.

Answer 5

A quality bomb , with the radiation and correct wind currents, might affect the entire country.
And the Liberals are inviting the bad guys to do just such a thing

Answer 6

Sounds like a good plan Mike but you've missed Washington. Anyway, why bother with nukes just go and hijack foxnews and tell them all that Jesus is dead and the whole place will fall apart.

Answer 7

All the people that reside it the country that dropped the bomb would more than likely have the new trinity spot for a landscape.

Answer 8

Depends on bomb yield and the elevation at which they would be detonated.

Answer 9

Millions here and you can add millions to the retaliatory strike we would do.