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RE: Al-Qaida may have nuclear weapons
"That being the case, I would worry much more about 50 kilotons
of ANFO on a ship in the downtown harbour, than the
science-fiction of a 0.5 kiloton "suitcase bomb.""
Frank, while I agree with you on the rad effects you are
forgetting few things. The bast effect (ehhhhh 3 or 4 city
blocks in diameter maybe slightly more)and would vaporize a few
folk and is depended on where and who's harbor it is detontated
in, 2, the fire storm though very small would kill a few more 3,
the psychological effect would do even greater damage you know
that nasty word r-a-d-i-a-t-i-o-n, and then throw in the USG to
add some more fuel to this fire, and 4, your forgetting the Texas
City, Texas fertilizer ship explosion back in 1947. Even out of
some 18,000 residence 600 were found dead and they never did
figure out how many were incinerated while the town was
destroyed, though I believe a 1kt SADM would do a little more
damage if located properly. In the case of small low yield nuke,
just as a SADM it s like real estate, location, location and
location.
But AQ does believe in the KISS principle so your arguement no
matter the math has a lot of merit that canot be argued with.
Gerry
On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 10:49:27 -0500, "Franta, Jaroslav" wrote:
RE: Al-Qaida may have nuclear weapons
Yup! I keep forgetting about that radiological effect of an ANFO
Bomb.
<end quote>
Amusing line Gerry !
...seriously though, a one-kiloton fission explosion yields about
56 grams ( = 2 oz.) of fission products.
About half of these decay away within a few minutes (ie. before
being deposited as fallout, downwind).
After that, "the radioactivity of the debris produced in a
nuclear explosion diminishes by a factor of about 20 from the
first hour to the end of the first day" (Eisenbud & Gesell, 1997).
This is still enough to cause a significant dose, but only in
close proximity to the blast -- where you'd be dead from the
force of the explosion & flying debris anyway.
For example, an LD50 fallout dose would be expected within an
area of about a hundred yards from the detonation point.
Half a mile away, the dose would be essentially zero, except in a
narrow cucumber-shaped area, where a dose on the order of a
couple hundred rads could be received, if one really wanted to
stay put & get the maximum possible.
That kind of dose might increase your risk of dying of cancer
from the typical average of ~23% to ~25%.
That being the case, I would worry much more about 50 kilotons of
ANFO on a ship in the downtown harbour, than the science-fiction
of a 0.5 kiloton "suitcase bomb."
Jaro
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