The Complete Guide To Surviving A Nuclear Attack
Digit|November 2016

As anyone in touch with the news will know, things are starting to get dicey. While everyone hopes for the best, we help you prepare for the worst!

Sahil Dawka
The Complete Guide To Surviving A Nuclear Attack

ALL POLITICS LEAD TO WAR

Given the current state of affairs with our neighbours, war is no longer an unlikely scenario. Tensions are high with Pakistan and it’s no secret who China is posturing support. Russia too is getting into the fray with accusations about sabotaging the US presidential elections flying about, and a steady military build up near the Polish and Syrian borders. We’ve been one of the largest peaceful nations till now, but everything changes sooner or later. If and when the missiles start flying, chances are they’re gonna be nuclear!

NOW CONSIDER THE INEVITABLE HAS HAPPENED

With all due respect to Einstein, whether you’re alive in this paragraph depends on the multitude of factors too vast to enumerate. Let us abbreviate it to plain old luck. For a half-megaton bomb, the fireball radius is slightly more than 1 km and the shock and heat wave can do damage in an 8 km radius, and that’s not even taking the radiation into account. You weren’t close enough to be engulfed in the crater formed by the fireball, internally squished by the shock wave, or vaporized by the heatwave, but close enough to the blast that your whole life has changed (and may be drastically shortened at any moment since everything around you is on fire). You were forewarned. Luckily, you had read this article, and jumped in the drain as soon as you saw the light. Take a moment to thank us for telling you how a large enough water body can shield you from a blast of ionizing radiation. A more important characteristic of the water body is that these days they are close enough, thanks to the municipal department for the clogged drains. Thick enough concrete and steel will protect you from radiation too, but not so much from the shock wave of the thermonuclear bomb. Instead they may bury you.

This story is from the November 2016 edition of Digit.

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This story is from the November 2016 edition of Digit.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.