How long did the fallout last after Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
349782
they aren't there now.
1046067
This is a complicated issue, and there isn’t a black and white answer. But I can offer a few factors for you to consider. Prior to the Japanese’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. had refused to fight in WWII. We were only drawn in when Japan, unprovoked, destroyed most of our Navy in a sneak attack. Before WWII was over (a war that America had wanted to stay out of) more than half a million American troops lay dead. So how did the war end?The Japanese finally surrendered when they witnessed the destructive capacity of the nuclear weapon. A few hundred thousand Japanese were killed when our atomic bombs were dropped, but many other lives were saved. It’s hard to say how many, but consider that before we ever dropped “The Bomb”, more than 50 million people had been killed in WWII already. Even though many Japanese died, there is a good chance that more lives were saved overall by ending the war immediately.\n\nWith that said, I think that once the U.S. witnessed the destructive capacity of nuclear weapons, we had a dramatic “change of heart”. Reasonable people understand that all wars have some collateral damage, but nuclear weapons are so indiscriminate that almost all of the destruction is collateral damage. A nuclear bomb cannot distinguish between enemy combatants and innocent civilians. It destroys everything. Recognizing this, the U.S. has spent trillions of dollars developing precision guided weapons. Rather than “nuking” an entire city, we can fire GPS guided missiles that only destroy military targets. These advanced weapons systems are more costly to make, but by using them instead, we can preserve the lives of innocent people. So while the U.S. did use nuclear weapons, it is unlikely that we ever will again. Consider that the U.S. has been involved in many wars since then and has not used, or even threatened to use nuclear weapons.\n\nThe United States along with the other nuclear powers, and most of the countries in the world, have decided that nuclear weapons development should be discouraged. Most countries have agreed not to develop these weapons, and the countries that have them have been slowly reducing their stockpiles. I’d like to see us reduce our stockpiles even more quickly, but if we are down to about 2000 than we’ve made significant progress. We used to have more than 30,000.\n\nWouldn’t you agree that it’s bad for anybody else to get these things, regardless of who already has them? The more nuclear weapons there are in the world, the worse off everyone is. Now with that said, there are certain countries that are of particular concern to the world, and to the United States in particular. The most dangerous countries – the ones where we are justified in “getting our panties in a bunch”, are the ones who are most likely to use them against us or our allies. Iran, for example, is pretty anti-American. Most Iranians, including the Iranian President, consider the U.S. to be “The Great Satan”. They have many reasons, mostly religious, for hating us so passionately, but one of the greatest is that we are “friends” with Israel. \n\nThe Iranian President has called for the destruction of the State of Israel on many occasions, and he views our alliance with them as an impediment to the fulfillment of his goals. Is it hard to imagine that someone who has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” would be willing to use an atomic weapon? It’s true that they don’t currently have the technology to produce weapons grade uranium, but the technologies aren’t nearly as far apart as you might imagine.\n\nAs I mentioned above, this really is a complicated issue with no clear cut answers. What if they really only want to use nuclear power for energy? We can’t know for sure, but we do know that the Iranian President has said some pretty disturbing things about his own intentions, and the longer that they continue to enrich uranium, the closer they will get to having weapon
1168838
Well, aside from the incredible wealth of supporting evidence as to the existence of an atom (that is what you are really asking, right?) there are a couple of great historic events that prove we can split an atom. Furthermore, while you cannot see a single atom, everything that you do see is an aggregation of atoms. But, back to how we know, in August of 1945, the second world war was ended by dropping two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. You see, at it's simplest, an atom bomb's power is derived from the chain reaction that occurs from the splitting of the atom. Lord knows, no one has ever seen what happens when an atom is split. So, how do we know that we can split an atom? I mean, it's not like the threat of splitting an atom over a major population center didn't hold the world in a cold war for the better part of a century. Wow dude. I mean seriously, wow.
1641
That is an almost impossible question to answer.\n\nYou are not asking about the attack, but during the entire war.  And both cities were under attack from 1943 on.\n\nHiroshima was a major source of industry, making both aircraft and other munitions for the Japanese War industry.  Nagasaki was one of the major ports of Japan, and had one of the largest Naval Bases in the city.  So both had been subjected to bombardment for over a year before the war ended.\n\nA better question might be "How many would have died if they were not bombed?"
548164
Your question is a very good one and everyone here is trying to help. Let me wade in with what I hope is a clear answer or two.\n\nCommercial reactors do not have the configuration to do what a nuclear bomb does: go promptly critical and thus have a large-scale supercritical nuclear explosion. Even Chernobyl (may the 40 or so people who died from it rest in peace) was mostly a steam explosion with a burning of the graphite core. The RBMK reactors like Chernobyl have mostly been shut down now - folks in the former Soviet Union may chime in now as to their status. \n\nModern commercial nuclear reactors (unlike the RBMK design) have large concrete domes called containments over them. The containment structures are designed to hold large amounts of pressure to guard against an accidental release of radiation. Even if the reactor core (part with the nuclear fuel) should become uncovered and thus lose its cooling, the containment will hold most of the radioactive material inside. That is precisely what happened at Three Mile Island. Most of the fuel and fission products were in the containment basement and plated out on the walls.\n\nThe most credible accidents are practiced for often at every power plant. Drills exercise the staff from the control room to the folks who go out into the field to survey for radiation. Those drills are graded not just by the plant, not just by the NRC, but by the county and state. \n\nNuclear reactors do not become nuclear bombs. If you were to take used fuel from nuclear reactors and chemically reprocess it - separating out the plutonium that is made in small amounts in the fuel - you could eventually make a bomb. We do not do reprocessing of commercial nuclear fuel in the US. There is a worry that some countries may do that. Of course, that is precisely what the military does do.\n\nMy job? I am a Health Physicist. I teach radiation protection, nuclear physics, and radiation chemistry. In the event of an accident, I read remote monitors and figure out what the pathway the radionuclides are taking out, how much, and what dose might be delivered to the population downwind. My predictions are used to advise the county about evacuation of persons living in a 20 mile radius of the power plant. I have a Bachelors of Science in biology from Baylor University, Masters in Applied Nuclear Science from Georgia Tech, and my PhD work was in leukemia research at Baylor Col. of Medicine. I was part of the Three Mile Island Recovery Team.
958092
Thers no telling how long the war would have lasted If we had not used the bomb. It likely would have gone on for years, probably killing even more people. The bomb made a very strong statement. Still I understand what you mean. I suppose no one really knows for sure.
236036
Absolutely.  Military analysts predicted a full-scale invasion of the Japanese mainland would have costed the lives of 1 million Americans, .5 million British, and 3 million Japanese.  All those lives were saved by dropping the bombs.  Plus, the war got over sooner and the hard-ships faced by citizens of all the countries sitll involved were reduced significantly and they could go back to leading normal lives.
1123039
Well I don't think it is right to drop nukes on anyone. However I also acknowledge that President Truman was facing at least 5 more years of war in the Pacific. Many more American and Japanese servicemen would have died. It is hard to say whether those death tolls would have topped Japanese casualties from the bombs. What always bothered me about Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that after seeing the power of the fist bomb the Emperor didn't surrender immediately, thus incurring a second attack. Understand this though, if it hadn't been for Japan those bombs might have been used some time later with much more staggering death tolls. So if nothing else it told us dropping nukes was something that shouldn't be taken lightly.\n\nOk EDINA we get it you don't like US Foriegn Policy. However you should really save that for the current Iraq debates, because whether you like it or not Japan attacked us, thus drawing us into WWII.  Oh and here's a clue for ya, they did it because they wanted grab up resources on all the pacific islands.
1167525
The Hiroshima Bomb \nSize: length - 3 meters, diameter - 0.7 meters. \nWeight: 4 tons. \nNuclear material: Uranium 235. \nEnergy released: equivalent to 12.5 kilotons of TNT. \nCode name: "Little Boy". \nhttp://mothra.rerf.or.jp/ENG/A-bomb/History/Damages.html\n\nLos Alamos produced two operational bombs: “Little Boy,” the uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and the “Fat Man” plutonium bomb used at Nagasaki.\nLittle Boy  (Hiroshima) Fat Man  (Nagasaki)   \nWeight 9,700 lbs. 10,800 lbs.   \nLength 10 ft.                10 ft. 8 in.   \nDiameter 28 in.                  60 in.   \nFuel enriched uranium enriched plutonium   \nDetonation gun type implosion  \nExplosive Force15,000 tons TNT21,000 tons TNT \nAlthough the explosive power of Fat Man was greater than that of Little Boy, the damage was less extensive because of the hilly terrain around Nagasaki.\nSources: The Manhattan Project Heritage \nPreservation Association; USAF Museum.\n\nFrom URL http://www.afa.org/new_root/enolagay/AB.asp
98953
Higashinada area was damaged more than other area.\nVisit web sites bellow,you can find more information.
720060
No.  Although the Atomic bomb caused massive casualties it did not wipe out the entire population.  There were still people, cats, dogs and other animals.
836741
Russia 17,000 \nUnited States 10,000 \nChina 410 \nFrance 350 \nBritain 200 \nIsrael 100 \nIndia 70 \nPakistan 44 \n\nThe above are operational and deployed nukes.... \n\n"How bad" are these weapons....depends.\n\nDepends on the kiloton yield of the detonation (ie, tactical or strategic), method of delivery (ie, ground or air burst), and number of detonations, \n\nIn a full scale nuclear exchange between the superpowers (Russia, US or China), in the first 30 minutes, 1.1 billion souls will be lost.  Another 1 billion will die from radiation poisoning.  This will mostly be in the US, Russia, Europe, China and Japan.  The Northern Hemisphere will be plunged into prolonged agony and barbarity.\n\nEventually the nuclear winter will spread to the southern hemisphere where all plant and animal life would be extinguished in two years.  Those surviving will have been in deep shelter with enough water and food to last for two years....not very many, i assure you.
501373
no, it lasted for almost 80!! years before they all agreed. Look it up.
319522
The tactical nukes are under the 50 kiloton ranges, some as low as .3 kilotons, used for fighting advancing armies, or small targets.  \n\nThe strategic nukes, however, will takeout whole cities and cause widespread contamination, in the 100-500 kiloton range. They've built higher kilotons, but supposedly, they've been stockpiled or disassembled.  One or two strategic nuclear detonations, or even 50 would not cause world-wide contamination, its when you get into a full nuclear exchange, between the US and Russia with 1,000s of nukes going off, is when life would be 'unlivable.'\n\nThe W.H.O. predicted in 1982 that "1.1 billion people would be killed outright in such a nuclear war, mainly in the United States, the Soviet Union, Europe, China and Japan. An additional 1.1 billion people would suffer serious injures and radiation sickness, for which medical help would be unavailable. It thus seems possible that more than 2 billion people-almost half of all the humans on Earth-would be destroyed in the immediate aftermath of a global thermonuclear war. ... would probably be enough to reduce at least the Northern Hemisphere to a state of prolonged agony and barbarism." \n\nCarl Sagan made a case that "a war in which a mere 100 megatons were exploded, less than one percent of the world arsenals, and only in low-yield airbursts over cities. ....would ignite thousands of fires, and the smoke from these fires alone would be enough to generate an epoch of cold and dark almost as severe as in the 5000 megaton case. The threshold for ...The Nuclear Winter is very low."
644977
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
345678
On the morning of August 6, 1945, the United States Army Air Forces dropped the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima, followed three days later by the detonation of the "Fat Man" bomb over Nagasaki, Japan. The estimates of the combined death toll range from 100,000 to 220,000, with some estimates considerably higher when delayed deaths from radiation exposure are counted. More than 90% of the casualties were civilians.\n\nThe role of the bombings in Japan's surrender, as well as the effects and justification of them, have been subject to much debate. In the U.S., the prevailing view is that the bombings ended the war months sooner than would otherwise have been the case, saving many lives that would have been lost on both sides if the planned invasion of Japan had taken place[1]. In Japan, the general public tends to think that the bombings were needless as the preparation for the surrender was in progress in Tokyo[2].
648046
The shockwave goes out with very destructive force (knocks buildings down, overturns cars, etc) for 1-2 miles or 2-3 km. The shockwave will still damage objects as far out as 5 miles or about 15 km. Yes, you can survive a nuclear blast. the key is to not live next to the military base, gov't buildings, etc.\n\nthe radiation is the worst part of it all. Fallout can last for a very long time, literally decades.