Winds of Change.NET: India & Pakistan: Nuclear Fallout, Part 2

India & Pakistan: Nuclear Fallout, Part 2

by Joe Katzman at June 6, 2002 3:15 AM

(Updated June 7,2002)

72 hr. Fallout Patterns
(click picture to view full size)

Before I go any farther, I'm going to start by saying that I don't think it will come to this in the next little while. Especially with monsoon season coming, which will make extended military operations very difficult and so give both parties a face-saving out.

My May 23 posts explained the reasoning behind my belief in more depth, then answered some of InstaPundit's questions about the effects on the USA of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. Since then, a couple of crackerjack bloggers have made contributions, and research has given me some extra data to work with.

Plus, I know that many of you are asking about these issues. Hence this update and recap.

For starters, note the pictures above. They'll give you a quickie look at the geography of Kashmir, and also the likely radioactive fallout pattern 72 hrs. after nuclear strikes in the Kashmir area, Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi, Delhi, Ahmedabad, and Bombay. Chuck Watson of "Shoutin' Across the Pacific" is responsible for this excellent fallout research. He also notes that the high-altitude fallout (purple lines) will only be mildly dangerous, owing to the small size of the bombs involved and the tendency of the "hottest" particles to drop out at lower altitudes.

Impressive work. It gets better.

-- Nuclear Bomb Effects --

Nuclear weapons make a very big bang, but most of the damage they do isn't from the initial fireball.

The supersonic shockwave literally blows buildings down like the Big Bad Wolf, depending on how flimsy and far away they are. The shockwave also turns windows and assorted other objects (cars, for instance) into a wall of flying missiles that travels for miles.
Then there's radiation of various types, which strikes some near the blast directly. Depending on how far away you are and how well protected, the effects can range from sunburn to fatal.
Radiation also strikes the objects nearby. If the bomb strike is a "ground burst," that newly-radioactive dirt et. al. gets thrown high into the air by the mushroom cloud. What went up, must come down. That's fallout, and because it's radioactive it's dangerous. Too much exposure will kill you.
Fires rage afterward, not so much from the blast as from broken gas lines, smoldering wreckage being ignited later, etc. This often happens after earthquakes, too, for similar reasons. Worse, these fires can easily become one huge firestorm, whose hurricane-force winds and flames literally suck the oxygen from their area. A firestorm will probably kill more people than the blast did. Note that both India and Pakistan have cities that are pretty fire-prone to begin with due to lots of trash, inflammable building materials, etc.
Finally, there's incidental damage. The blast, shockwave, fires, and radiation sickness destroys a lot of public services, even as it sends demand for them beyond the ability to cope. In that environment, even a minor illness like severe diarrhea can kill you. Dehydrated now? Sorry, the water mains are broken. You can drink from that stagnant pool over there, but if you get sick the doctors are dead or busy (and if it's been a few days, that pool is dangerously radioactive). Ah, you collected rainwater yourself! Very smart to avoid the infection risk, but those rains were highly radioactive and you probably just drank a lethal dose. Burned? Broke an ankle hunting around in the rubble? Got a cut? Better hope infection doesn't set in. Drugstore for antibiotics? Sorry, the pharmacists died when the building fell on them.

It doesn't help that neither India nor Pakistan has a major civil defense program in place.

The Federation of American Scientists explains nuclear bomb effects in detail, including relevant "danger distances" for 20kT weapons of the type India and Pakistan have. The aftermath, you can see up above in living colour.

-- Who Has What... and What Is That? --

Georgia State University's Physics Department offers a good explanation of the technical basics of atomic weapons. Now you're ready to read Jane's Defense Review, which offers us a pretty good guess at the size and composition of India and Pakistan's nuclear arsenals.

Note that some experts think both sides are slightly overestimating their bombs' explosive power, expressed in "kilotons (kT)". The statistic of 43kT for India's thermonuclear (hydrogen) bombs is particularaly disputed. About 15-20kT is the most frequent "adjusted estimate" range given for both countries' weapons.

The A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were about 18kT and 20kT, respectively.

-- "Nuclear Kashmir" Casualty Estimates --

New Scientist magazine recently found a study that estimates 2.9 million dead and 1.5 million injured if India and Pakistan used just 10% of their arsenals. This estimate represents immediate casualties only. Using a terminal for the USA's CATS estimation system, the Washington Times came up with a very detailed immediate casualties accounting of its own.

Recall our discussion above of "incidental damage," and let me give you an example. Both contaminated food/water and chemotherapy-level radiation exposure can induce diarrhea. Health infrastructure in India and Pakistan is a bit thin to begin with, and many people are used to getting water from local rivers, wells, etc. Diarrhea seems harmless, but if the infrastructure isn't there it's a killer. Between death by dehydration and death by drinking irradiated water, we could be looking at an awful lot of bodies from that cause alone.

Chuck Watson of "Shoutin' Across the Pacific" does disaster planning for a living. Thousands of lives have probably been saved as a result of his work. As Mr. Watson writes via email:

"...my company develops numerical models of geophysical hazards, concentrating on meteorological hazards such as hurricanes and other severe weather, as well as earthquakes, and tsunamis. But we also do extreme "human" hazards, such as nuclear or chemical disasters. We apply both satellite and aircraft remote sensing and computer cluster technologies (such as Beowulf clusters) to run high resolution computer models of hazardous events for government agencies and business. The Savannah nuke graphic [JK: coming in a future Winds of Change post!], as well as the Indo-Pak fallout graphics, are using our "simple" models. The more detailed models are either classified or proprietary (or both), but these aren't too far off the mark.

He estimates that the successful 10-weapon nuclear exchange pictured above would kill 15 million when "incidentals" and other things are figured in, with total deaths that might reach 100 million+ over 1-5 years if we include fallout, medical system collapses in other cities as fallout effects spread, social unrest and riots, diseases that spread from all those decomposing bodies, short-term cancer deaths, etc.

Over to Chuck for one more alarming note:

"I assumed (as DIA probably did as well) strikes on each sides reactors and nuclear infrastructure, which would add to the destruction and radiological disaster. I haven't seen any other long term (1 to 5 year) loss estimates - depending on winds and political conditions, that 100M number could be high or low by a factor of 3."

It's good to keep in mind that these estimates are always an inexact science. But the ranges under discussion are quite reliable, and sobering. The fact that they are not news to Indian or Pakistani defense planners is cause for cautious optimism.

-- Further Implications --

On June 4th, Winds of Change discussed 4th Generation Warfare (4GW) and its connection with weapons of mass destruction (WMD). On June 5th, we outlined a second kind of 4GW-WMD connection, in which the terrorists don't need to have nuclear weapons in order to trigger their use.

Oh, one more thing. India and Pakistan's arsenals are mostly made up of bombs mounted on aircraft. In attempting to deliver their bombs, it's very likely that some of those planes will be shot down. Anyone seen "The Sum of All Fears" (N.B. the book's terrorists were Islamic and backed by Iran)? Clancy is right that nuclear bombs do not detonate in crashes... way too dangerous, otherwise.

The scenarios that could ensue from unrecovered nuclear weapons amidst a stituaton of massive chaos, in regions where Al-Qaeda is known to have a significant presence... are too obvious to explain in detail.

This is, frankly, a problem that Pakistan created twice. First in Kashmir directly. Second, through its support of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Jason at Tonecluster steps in with excerpts from an excellent RAND document, detailing Pakistan's ongoing role in Kashmiri terrorism. As Jason notes: "A bunch of nuts is one thing. A bunch of well-armed nuts actively sponsored by a nuclear-capable state is completely another."

What he said. It doesn't take much to see how this connects with the "What's Up Doc?" scenarios for al-Qaeda that I posted on June 5th. Having summoned the ifrit, Pakistan is finding that it doesn't want to go back into the bottle. The servant may now be the master, in control of events.

That's what ifrit do.

Even so, I beleieve the Kashmir situation to be containable. By contrast, shift your imagination to the nuclear development programs of Iraq and Iran... then ask yourself if President Bush might have a point when he talks about a pre-emptive strategy.

UPDATE: I have such great readers. Dean Cheng noted that 1,000 tons = 2,000,000 pounds. Yup - late night brain freeze. David Gillies then chimed in again from Costa Rica, to tell me that TNT equivalent is no longer the measure. "...it was redefined (by the DoE I think) to be exactly 10^12 (one trillion) calories or 4.18 x 10^12 Joules. That's a better measure as it scales properly with increasing yield whereas blast, thermal and prompt radiation do not go up linearly with yield (blast and thermal dominate over radiation as yield goes up and getting 1000 tons of TNT in one place is tricky, let alone a million)."

Now we know. For me, being able to draw on unexpected deep expertise like David's and Chuck's is the true genius of the Blogosphere.

Persons wishing to contact the author of this article for reprints etc. should put a request in the Comments section, or send an email to "joe", over here @windsofchange.net.