3 ms·
The shock wave is a serious hazard to personnel far beyond the fireball. Just a few pounds of dynamic overpressure presents a hurricane-force wind hazard, and f
by cocoablazing 9y ago
The shock wave is a serious hazard to personnel far beyond the fireball. Just a few pounds of dynamic overpressure presents a hurricane-force wind hazard, and five will result in catastrophic damage to non-hardened structures and a near complete loss of life. The shock front detaches quite early from the fireball. The classic scary videos of residential structures annihilated during nuclear testing were sampled from beyond the maximum fireball radii.
- daxfohl 9y agoYeah those videos make me wonder. But my understanding from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions is that humans are quite a bit more resilient than structures. So a shock wave that utterly destroys an otherwise strong structure may not kill a human. However that seems related purely to the atmospheric shock wave itself. I guess shrapnel (even dirt), building collapse, maybe even "throwing the person" (so the ground, rather than atmospheric effects, kills) would greatly add to the indirect ways of dying. But is it most likely thermal radiation that actually does you in?
- cocoablazing 9y agoThe thermal radiation and resulting firestorm would be the cause of most deaths from an attack on a city.