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Comment by dabluecaboose | Hacker News Reader

> Read: if you'd ever find yourself victim of a nuclear blast, you're on your own. Probably lucky if you die instantly.

Emphasis on "lucky if you die instantly."

There seems to be this pervasive belief about nuclear weapons that they just wink people and cities out of existence, and all the millennial and Gen-Z nihilists blithely proclaim "Oh, I live in [XYZ City], I'm screwed anyway haha I'll just get vaporized!"

The "instant death" radius is a LOT smaller than most people realize (~1/2 mile radius for a 10KT warhead)[1] (shown in link as "Severe Damage" radius").

If you seriously believe there's a threat of a nuclear detonation affecting you, don't expect to just painlessly disappear. Be prepared.

[1] https://remm.hhs.gov/zones_nucleardetonation.htm

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Nuclear survivability is weird. See Akiko Takakura who survived the Hiroshima bombing with essentially nothing but minor cuts, bruises, and burns (requiring minimal medical intervention) due to the pressure wave and heat despite being less than 1/4 mile (300m) from the center of the Little boy explosion and well within the supposed "lethal range".

What she had going for her was that she was inside a reinforced concrete structure (in the lobby of the bank of japan) and not standing directly near any windows or doorways. That she wasn't crushed or injured by damage to the structure was the true stroke of luck. The people who were inside and away from windows or doors were largely safe from the unique threats of the bomb (fire, radiation, pressure wave) but were still subject to the extreme lethality of being inside a large stone or concrete building that has been largely destroyed by a bomb.

Also she limited her exposure to radiation contamination by getting out of the city ASAP and not drinking the contaminated water. As a result she didn't even suffer radiation poisoning I believe.

With modern knowledge of nuclear attacks, the survivability seems a lot better. If you happen to be in a good, sturdy concrete building (which many are nowadays) at the time of the blast and you don't succumb to mechanical trauma that renders you unable to escape, your odds are quite good if you follow some basic rules:

1. Cover your airways with a mask or at least a rag to reduce dust and particle inhalation.

2. Avoid drinking or eating from unsealed sources where possible. Doubly so for uncovered sources. i.e. bottled water (or anything else sealed) is best. Liquid in an unsealed container is OK even if it isn't ideal and water from open bodies of water or the rain is very very bad.

3. Get out of the immediate disaster area and find a gathering point for medical attention, evacuation, and relocation.

4. Maybe keep some iodine tablets on you to help protect your thyroid (however this is really only a concern for reactor failures and only minimally so for bombings). Take within less than 4 hours and once every 24 hours after that.

If you are in a good position at the time of the blast and you can do those big 3, you have really, really good odds for survival. If you are lucky enough to be able to check box #4 as well that's just a nice bonus.

If you aren't young or breastfeeding, iodine tablets don't particularly matter.

https://dsa.no/en/preparedness/taking-iodine-tablets-in-the-...

The Hiroshima bomb, which killed about 70,000 to 80,000 people instantly, was relatively small compared to today's standards. Currently, the most likely threat to a major Western city is from a Russian ICBM. On average, a Russian ICBM warhead has a yield of about 400 kilotons, which is approximately 26 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. While survival in a strong concrete building, such as a bank, is possible, it's important to consider how many people in a city are actually in such fortified structures at any given time. Realistically, a very small percentage of the population would be in such strongholds during an attack. But okay, I have a few iodine tablets in the cupboard.

While yes modern weapons have higher yield, the point still generally holds the same. If you are in a heavy concrete structure, you actually have pretty decent odds. Now what access people have to that depends on where they live.

From my experience on the east coast, a lot of the office buildings, etc in the DMV are mid 20th century brutalist concrete structures. So like even if you were in DC proper, your odds are surprisingly good as long as you are inside a building or in a metro station.

My point wasn't so much that it's easy to survive. It's very much not. However it's not the guaranteed death a lot of people assume. Rather to quote, it's an earthquake, a tornado, and a wildfire all in one (plus radiation). If you are inside you lose the risk of radiation from the blast so now you just have to contend with the threat of 3 natural disasters at once. So if where you work is well suited for safety from a fire, from a tornado, and from an earthquake, you'll probably be in a reasonably safe space.

We both agree that there's a chance of survival. However, an unresolved question remains: is it really better to survive, or would it have been better to have died instantly? If most of my friends and family have died, then I would rather chose the latter.

Worth watching the British film Threads. That shows the aftermath quite realistically.

Can be watched here: https://archive.org/details/threads_202007

Also The War Game from 1966 by Peter Watkins. Was commissioned by the BBC to prepare the public for a nuclear strike, but was then not televised as "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting". Went on to be considered one of the best British documentaries of all time, and one of the most realistic depictions of the effects of a nuclear strike on a populace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game

Can be watched here: https://archive.org/details/TheWarGame_201405

Careful with "Threads" - I've heard from normally stout people that it sent them into a funk because it was rather traumatic.

Good advice. If you're in a bad place, don't watch it.

Most people are completely unprepared for a power outage or an earthquake.

Why do you think a nuclear blast (statistically far less likely) is going to get any better attention?

I don't necessarily expect it to get better attention. I did intentionally caveat that with "If you seriously believe there's a threat".

That said, I heard a line in the fantastic Kurzgesagt video[1] that said something along the lines of "A nuclear detonation is the worst parts of an earthquake, tornado, and wildfire all at the same time"

It stands to reason, then, that being prepared for each of those disasters will leave you significantly more well off in the unlikely event of "the big one".

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iPH-br_eJQ

Worth noting that 10kT is 3 orders of magnitude(!) smaller than current warheads. The "instant death" diameter is > 10 miles nowadays. So yea, just a full city :)

Edit: radius -> diameter

> The "instant death" radius is > 10 miles nowadays.

I don't know where you're getting this information.

The "moderate damage" blast radius for the Minuteman missile, currently in service in the US, isn't even 10 miles. The moderate radius for the Russian "Topol"/SS-25 is only ~11 miles.

The blast radius of the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated, is only ~5 miles for "heavy damage" and just over 12 for "moderate damage".

src: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

I fixed it to diameter.

I live near an airport that is very likely a major target. My plan in the event I am aware something is kicking off is to get on a bicycle and get as close as I can. Hoping to get vaporized by the initial blast.

As a child of the 80s, I'm glad to see the old wisdom is still alive. (Aka "make sure it lands on your head")

Just seems like a way to maximize the risk of turning blind to start things off.

Probably be an EMP attack before nukes land on the airport so using a bike is smart.

I mean, 10KT is a tiny explosion for modern nuclear weapons. You really only hit that by intentionally dampening the explosion with "dial a yield" weapons.

A better representation would be the W88 at 475KT. That's what's currently used in the Trident SLBMs. And remember that this is an MIRV system with 8 warheads per missile. Yes, the idea is that some of those will be intercepted, but at the end of the day that's still almost 5MT of explosive power per missile dropping down on your city.

Edit: for reference Little Boy and Fat Man were in the 15KT to 20KT range, and for comparison to a modern conflict, about ~50KT of conventional bombs have been dropped on Gaza in the 2023 Israel-Hamas war so far.

> 10KT is a tiny explosion for modern nuclear weapons.

Agreed, but it was the reference I had on hand.

> And remember that this is an MIRV system with 8 warheads per missile. Yes, the idea is that some of those will be intercepted, but at the end of the day that's still almost 5MT of explosive power per missile dropping down on your city.

MIRVs generally aren't dropping 8 identical bombs on one target. Each warhead is independently targeted, as per the acronym.

The point of an MIRV system is flexibility.

Yes, smaller targets might get one RV.

But larger targets (the 'cities' under discussion here) are allocated whole missiles as a "cluster" as (due to the inverse square law) it's more effective to have multiple middle of the road warheads (in the 0.5MT range) than the single multiple MT warheads when you look at if from the perspective of damage over surface area.

If the target itself is the City itself, then no arguments at all. This is however assuming we're at the "Counter-Value" stage of conflict and past "Counter-Force", so ostensibly you shouldn't be taken by surprise by nuclear bombs falling anyway.

I appreciate your comments, it's always refreshing to have an actual discussion about these topics rather than uninformed fearmongering.

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