Mon 9 Oct 2006
Yes, that was how North Korea's bomb was described this morning on the BBC World Service.
Paraphasing:
The Russians estimated that the bomb had a yield of between 5 and 15 Kilotons. By comparison, the first nuclear bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of about 15 Kilotons. So this is a quite basic atomic device.
As I have recently finished Hiroshima by John Hershey, here's what that "quite basic" bomb did to a city of 237,000 people.
- 100,000 dead
- 62,000 of 90,000 buildings destroyed
- Hibakusha "explosion-affected survivors" who suffered long term health effects all their lives from radiation poisoning
I'm always overwhelmed by the British capability for understatement.
October 9th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
I'm always reminded of the ubiqitous "atomic hand grenade" in sci-fi books like Starship Troopers. Granted, you can tone down yields, but precisely how far would one have to throw a nuclear hand grenade to be safe from it? Pretty damned far, I bet.