This Is What a Nuclear Strike Would Feel Like: The New York Times Creates a Precise Simulation
Though certain generations may have grown up trained to take cover under their classroom desks in the case of a nuclear showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union, few of us today can believe that we’d stand much chance if we found ourselves anywhere near a detonated missile. Still, the probable effects of a nuclear blast do bear repeating, which the New York Times video above does not just convey verbally but also visually, deriving its information “from interviews of military officials and computer scientists who say we’re speeding toward the next nuclear arms race.”
The last nuclear arms race may have been bad enough, but the relevant technologies have greatly advanced since the Cold War — which, with the last major arms treaty between the U.S. and Russia set to expire within a year, looks set to re-open. Don’t bother worrying about a whole arsenal: just one missile is enough to do much more damage than you’re probably imagining. That’s the scenario envisioned in the video: “traveling at blistering speeds,” the nuke detonates over its target city, and “everyone in range is briefly blinded. Then comes the roar of 9,000 tons of TNT,” producing a fireball “hotter than the surface of the sun.” And that’s just the beginning of the trouble.
A destructive “blast wave” emanates from the site of the explosion, “and then… darkness.” The air is full of “dust and glass fragments,” making it difficult, even deadly, to breathe. What’s worse, “no help is on the way: medical workers in the immediate area are dead or injured.” For survivors, there begins the “radiation sickness, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea”; some of the deadliest effects don’t even manifest for weeks. “The immediate toll of this one warhead: thousands dead, exponentially more wounded. Damage to the ecosystem will linger for years.” Indeed, the extent of the damage is too great to ponder without resort to gallows humor, as evidenced by the video’s current top comment: “My boss would still force me to come into the office the next day.”
Related content:
What Would Happen If a Nuclear Bomb Hit a Major City Today: A Visualization of the Destruction
See Every Nuclear Explosion in History: 2153 Blasts from 1945–2015
Protect and Survive: 1970s British Instructional Films on How to Live Through a Nuclear Attack
53 Years of Nuclear Testing in 14 Minutes: A Time Lapse Film by Japanese Artist Isao Hashimoto
Every Nuclear Bomb Explosion in History, Animated
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.