How do you survive a nuclear war?

Unfortunately, the chance that a nuclear war will break out is not imaginary. A warned person counts for two and with a number of measures you can limit the damage for you and your loved ones.

Real risk of nuclear war

According to physicist Max Tegmark, there is a real chance that the conflict in Ukraine will turn into a nuclear war. He estimates the chance of this being one in six. This can be a limited deployment of nuclear weapons, a world war and everything in between. Not only he thinks so.

According to Elon Musk, the danger is so great that he has disabled Starlink in Crimea for that reason. This is to prevent the Ukrainians from retaking Crimea and Putin using nuclear weapons.

The consequences of nuclear war depend on the scale. For example, there are fairly light tactical nuclear weapons, such as neutron bombs, which are used on the battlefield to kill the crews of columns of armored vehicles. There are also heavy strategic nuclear weapons that can devastate a vast area.

The consequences of using tactical nuclear weapons are local. This will probably only take place in Ukraine and, apart from the victims, will therefore have a fairly limited impact. Strategic nuclear weapons are a different story. There is a real chance that these will also land in the Netherlands.

What happens in a nuclear explosion?

In a nuclear explosion, a chain reaction takes place. A nuclear fuel is compressed with a neutron source. In a nuclear reaction, several neutrons are released with each nuclear fission, causing an avalanche of exploding atomic nuclei.

The result is that an awful lot of energy is released in a fraction of a millisecond. You notice this in several ways. An intense flash of dangerous radiation, a heavy pressure wave and the release of many radioactive substances. Also an electromagnetic pulse. Surviving a nuclear explosion depends on the distance and the power of the bomb.

For the Dutch situation, Rotterdam, more precisely the Botlek area, is the most obvious target for the Russians. They also threatened to do this on state television. A large part of Europe is supplied via this port. For this, the Russians will probably deploy a heavy strategic nuclear weapon, such as the Topol 5. In this scenario we start from this.

Destructive Flash

Do you live less than 1 km away from the explosion, and are you not protected by, for example, a wall or roof? Then the intense flash will completely destroy you in a split second and only a shadow of you will remain. Game over.

Are you a little further from the explosion? Then you will suffer severe burns and probably radiation sickness from the intense gamma radiation.

Devastating pressure wave

Are you safe inside? Then you will survive this flash, but you will have to deal with the next danger. The pressure wave. The air around the nuclear explosion is heated to millions of degrees. This will expand enormously, creating a very strong pressure wave in the shape of a ball. This sweeps the immediate area clean and leaves no wall standing. About what happened in the port of Beirut after the explosion of the fertilizer storage.

Less than a kilometer away, your chances of survival are very slim, but your chances of survival increase greatly if you are further away from the explosion. Then it’s time to take cover. Do you have a basement? Then this is the safest place. Prepare a jerry can with water so that you can survive for up to a week or two.

Don’t have a basement? If you have one, opt for a bathtub, or an enclosed space without windows. An underground parking garage or metro tunnel is ideal, for example. Stay away from windows as the shards become deadly projectiles.

Radioactive fallout in a nuclear war

A problem that you also have to deal with at a greater distance is radioactive fallout. Contrary to what many people believe, radioactivity is not necessarily fatal. If you limit exposure, there is a very good chance that you will survive this.

Less than 2.5 km from the nuclear explosion, the amount of radioactive fallout is very high, and you will probably die from radiation poisoning within a month. If you survive this, there is an estimated 10% chance that you will die of cancer.

Are you at a greater distance? In Rotterdam itself in this case, for example, you will receive a dangerous dose of radiation, but you will probably survive it. Especially if you close all windows and stay inside for two weeks.

Most radiation is released from short-lived radioactive nuclei. Usually these have disintegrated within a few days. More annoying are the medium-lived isotopes, with half-lives of weeks to years. The good news is that the radioactivity is released more slowly here. If you seal all the cracks, come out of hiding after two weeks and quickly leave the disaster area, you can limit the exposure.

If you take iodine tablets, your body will absorb the radioactive iodine isotope I-131 much less. With an FFP2 face mask, known from covid, you can prevent ingesting radioactive dust.

EMP

Not only you, but also your electronics suffer from a nuclear attack. This creates a devastating avalanche of electrons and ions. This effect, the electromagnetic pulse or EMP, has a much wider range and can destroy electronics hundreds of miles away. And without electronics, we end up in the nineteenth century. Without the handy powerless tools that the nineteenth century had.

So keep your bike in good working order and store a paper-wrapped wind-up radio in a large tin to protect it from EMP. Your car will probably stop working because the highly sensitive car electronics have blown.