Medicine and the bom

Scan page 11

Hiroshima bomb which killed 65,000 people either outright or within a fortnight.

The Smiths estimate that a one-megaton explosion would destroy by blast most buildings in a radius of seven kilometres. ic. aboul 1.50 square kilometres or 60 square miles, including Neasden and the Isle of Dogs. Nearly everyone out in the open or in an unreinforced building would be killed outright.

But while in the equivalent blast zone at Hiroshima 90% of people were killed by blast and fire, in London there would be fewer deaths and more non-fatal injuries .. as buildings are stronger and the blast zone for the bigger bomb would reach further than the fire zone.

Outside the blast zone there would be less damage but even so, windows would be broken at Harrow and Woolwich 40 scconds after the explosion. After two minutes, 440 kilometre per hour winds (galo force 27) would he blowing dust and debris ind bits of people from five kilometres around the site of the vaporised BMA House.

The heat of the firebal would blind anyone who looked at it, and cause second-degree burns (blistering) on naked skin within 16 kilometres (Harrow and Woolwich again).

Any combustible matcrial within 10 kilometres exposed to the heat would be set alight (paper, clothes, curtains, leaves, grass). Nearer the centre there might be a firestorm, a selfperpetuating fire drawing fresh air from around and burning until all combustible materials had been consumed. The greatest firestorm of World War 2 at Dresden killed 100,000 people, including all those in deep account of this deliberate fire-bombing of the civilian population, read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, my favourite author).

After blast and heat, radiation. There would be few immediate deaths from radiation after a one megaton bomb, as anyone near enough to get a lethal dose would be killed by blast or heat. However, tons of dust thrown up by the explosion and made radioactive would be carried by prevailing winds, bringing iliness and death.

For instance, a one megaton bomb on Glasgow with a 25 kilometre per hour south-westerly breeze would deliver enough fallout to Aberdeen to kill half its inhabitants. The fallout from cause significant numbers of deaths in Manchester with the right winds.

Cancers and mutations would abound.

Stratosphere

The radioactivity in fallout declines quickly (by 99% in two days), but even the one per cent left would make ares unsafe for weeks.

Some more long-acting radioactivity would be shot into the stratosphere and start coming down in the Northern Hemisphere after two weeks. This could cause an increase in leukemia.

Next week: effects acute radiation injuries.

Scan page 12

Organiser January 21, Page JOHN McILROY looks at the historical development of the Labour Party as the political party of the workers' movement,