MAP SHOWS NUCLEAR DEVASTATION
People in Potteries could suffer chemical burns if Birmingham bombed
A TERRIFYING map shows which parts of the UK would be wiped out if a nuclear attack was launched – with the effects felt as far away as Stoke-on-trent.
It is likely that London, as the capital city, would be the top target for any such strike, but large areas of the country could also be destroyed. And people in the Potteries could potentially suffer chemical burns if Birmingham, the UK’S second largest city, was hit.
An online tool called Nukemap and its sister site Missilemap help demonstate what could happen. They were made by
Alex Wellerstein, who studies nuclear history at the Stevens Institute of Technology.
He says just one of the Topol (SS-25) weapons in Russia’s arsenal could kill almost one million people and hurt 2.2 million more if it hit London. The blast from this 800kt bomb would cover all of London. People would feel it from Enfield in the north to Croydon in the south, reports the Mirror. A Tsar Bomba – the biggest nuclear weapon ever made – would destroy an area 6km across if it hit Birmingham. This blast could kill 2.4 million people. It would also give people as far away as Leicester, Nottingham and Stoke-on-trent serious burns. If the same bomb hit London, it could kill 5.7 million people and hurt another 3.4 million. Even a smaller, 50 megatonne Tsar Bomb – the biggest the Soviet Union ever tested – could kill 2.1 million people and hurt another 2.1 million.
The explosion would be so massive that thousands of people in Liverpool and Leeds could suffer severe burns and disabilities.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons says their effects would last far beyond the initial blast. “Nuclear weapons produce ionizing radiation, which kills or sickens those exposed, contaminates the environment, and has longterm health consequences, including cancer and genetic damage,” it said “Less than one per cent of the nuclear weapons in the world could disrupt the global climate and threaten as many as two billion people with starvation.
“The thousands of nuclear weapons owned by the US and Russia could cause a nuclear winter, destroying the vital ecosystems all life relies on.”
Those who argue for storing nuclear weapons say they have led to decades of relative peace by forcing superpowers into a kind of stalemate due to the fear of mutually assured destruction.