August, 1945
The two atomic bombs over Japan were named "Fat Man" and "Little Boy".
Little Boy found its target, and 140,000 people ultimately died in Hiroshima. It was a smaller bomb than Fat Man, which
hit Nagasaki, but there were unique characteristics of Hiroshima and how the bomb hit that multiplied the disastrous effects.
Even so, consider that the mushroom cloud over Nagasaki reached about
18 kilometers high, or about 50,000 to 60,000 ft, which is significantly higher than the altitude at which international airlines
fly.
The acceleration rate from each blast was equivalent to a Category Five
hurricane, or approximately 300 miles per hour. (See also Nature 47: 776, 2002).
On the anniversary date each year many people from across the globe come
and release paper lanterns into the Motoyasu River to commemorate the loss of life that occurred in this historic event.
There are also a diminishing number of survivors that have had complex medical histories as a result of their exposures.
U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed the orders for the attack from a
viewpoint that, even at such catastrophic proportions of probable loss of life, these bombs would ultimately limit casualty
losses that would be even higher to both sides during extended conventional warfare.
The event indeed changed the outcome of World War II.
It also opened up a new era in warfare, and engendered a fearsome capacity
for humans in all walks of life to see the prospects for their own self-destruction.
The threat of asymmetrical nuclear warfare is a clear and present danger
in our times. The risks have only grown. The potential consequences also do not have to be delivered
by missiles from distant overseas locations, as many regions of the world can attest.
For example, just one small nuclear device, small enough to fit in a
mini-van and delivered to Los Angeles civic center, could ultimately take out 10% of the population of Los Angeles County,
or about 1 million people. In another example, a Rand Corporation study released on August 15, 2006, states that a nuclear
explosion at the Port of Long Beach would kill 60,000 people outright, and expose 150,000 to hazardous radiation. The
direct economic losses would be about ten times more than those of the September 11, 2001 terrorism attacks.
In current times, the risk of one or more dirty bombs is likely higher
than the risk of an actual nuclear explosion. A dirty bomb is simply made of conventional explosives laced with radiation.
Most injuries and deaths are from the conventional explosives alone, and are thus expected to be limited in number, although
even so could certainly rise to the level of the attacks on Oklahoma City. It is likely more civilians would be
economically harmed from a dirty bomb incident than would experience a direct threat to their life safety.
This also does not mean that one or more nuclear bombs can not or
will not be used in warfare during this generation or at some point in time, especially with the growing number of potential
sources for those bombs, and global tensions in general.
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