What it would look like if the Hiroshima bomb hit Austin
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In the final days of World War II, the United States dropped an atomic bomb called “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945.
Including those lost in the aftermath, the bombing claimed about 140,000 lives, according to the New York Times.
A few days later, on Aug. 9, the U.S. dropped another bomb on Nagasaki, called “Fat Man.” That bomb killed about 80,000 more people. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15.
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki marked the only instances of nuclear weapons being used in war and brought an end to a years-long global conflict, but the human cost is difficult to fathom.
As the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing approaches Thursday, the Washington Post pointed to two online visualization tools that can bring the damage into perspective: NukeMap, developed by a nuclear historian at the Stevens Institute of Technology, and a similar application created by Public Radio International.
A simulated nuclear bomb blast range, via NukeMap.
Using NukeMap to estimate the effects of 15-kiloton bomb like Little Man on Austin produces sobering results: an estimated 67,320 fatalities and 64,770 injuries. Selecting the Texas Capitol as the epicenter due to its location at the heart of the city (and selecting an airburst as the detonation height), NukeMap estimates:
- A fireball radius of 590 feet, contained mostly to the Capitol grounds.
- A 20-psi airblast radius of 1,100 feet. Within that range, concrete buildings would be severely damaged or demolished, according to NukeMap. The Governor's Mansion is within this range.
- A 500-rem radiation radius of about three-quarters of a mile, which carries an expected 50-90 percent mortality rate from acute effects alone. NukeMap notes that deaths would occur as late as several weeks after the blast. A large swath of downtown is included in this range, reaching the Second Street District to the south; House Park to the west; the edge of the University of Texas' South Mall to the north; and to 14th and Navasota streets to the east.
- A thermal radiation radius of 1.18 miles, where widespread third-degree burns occur. This area extends to the outer edge of UT-Austin's campus, Pease Park, the Austin American-Statesman and Kealing Middle School.
NukeMap also provides the option to examine damage and death estimates for different targets and other historically significant bomb yields, such as that of the Nagasaki bombing. Read more about the history of Hiroshima and the effects of nuclear weapons at the Washington Post.
Source: Austin.blog.statesman.com
