BUILD UNDERGROUND A fallout shelter needs to protect you from radioactive particles and blast impact: compacted dirt is great at both. Building down to a depth of about ten feet will provide ample protection, but any deeper makes it hard to dig out in the event of a collapse.
The resulting inferno, and the blast wave that follows, instantly kill people directly in their path. But a new study finds that some people two to seven miles away could survive—if they're lucky enough to find just the right kind of shelter.
The safest place in your home during an radiation emergency is a centrally located room or basement. This area should have as few windows as possible. The further your shelter is from windows, the safer you will be.
About 3 feet down underground, or some equivalent shielding. In order to get a reasonable protection factor, you want to try for 10 “halving thicknesses ” of mass between you and any source of gamma radiation. That means you need about 36 inches of packed earth or 24 inches of concrete on all sides, including above.
A bunker built of reinforced concrete with walls 5 feet thick could withstand a 1 megaton ground burst bomb a mile away without being underground at all. A thin walled corrugated steel tube would need to be buried with about 4 feet of earth on top to survive a similar detonation.
How long to stay in the shelter? The minimum is 24 hours. The longer you stay in the shelter, the lower the radiation dose you will receive. But if you are in a bad shelter, and there is a better one nearby, move to it at least an hour after the attack.
Packed earth insulates against radiation and blast waves, but don't go deeper than 10 feet; if your exits (make two) become blocked in the blast, you may need to dig yourself out.
Alpha particles can be stopped completely by a sheet of paper. Beta particles travel appreciable distances in air, but can be reduced or stopped by a layer of clothing, thin sheet of plastic or a thin sheet of aluminum foil.
The safest place: the corners of a room, author Ioannis Kokkinakis of Cyprus' University of Nicosia said in a statement. “Even in the front room facing the explosion, one can be safe from the high airspeeds if positioned at the corners of the wall facing the blast,” Kokkinakis added.
The study published in the journal Risk Analysis describes Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu as the island countries most capable of producing enough food for their populations after an “abrupt sunlight‐reducing catastrophe” such as a nuclear war, super volcano or asteroid strike.
To seal a room:
Seal all windows, rooms and air vents in one room with 2-4 mil. thick plastic sheeting and duct tape. You might want to measure an duct the plastic sheeting in advance to save time. Cut the plastic sheeting at least six inches wider than the openings and label each sheet.
Radiation levels are extremely dangerous immediately after a nuclear detonation, but the levels reduce rapidly, in just hours to a few days. This is when it will be safest to leave your shelter and participate in an orderly evacuation.
Scientists have recently revealed that Australia and New Zealand are best placed to survive a nuclear apocalypse and help reboot collapsed human civilisation. The study, published in the journal Risk Analysis. These countries include not just Australia and New Zealand, but also Iceland, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
STAY INSIDE: Take shelter unless told otherwise.
If possible, turn off fans, air conditioners, and forced-air heating units that bring air in from the outside. Close windows and doors. Close fireplace dampers.
A nuclear device no larger than a conventional bomb can devastate an entire city by blast, fire, and radiation. Since they are weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a focus of international relations policy.
But the vast majority of the human population would suffer extremely unpleasant deaths from burns, radiation and starvation, and human civilization would likely collapse entirely.
As a non-nuclear-weapon state, Australia engages with other countries to advocate disarmament and non-proliferation. Australia consistently promotes cooperation within existing disarmament architecture based on the cornerstone Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Is nuclear war likely? No. No matter the chances of nuclear war breaking out between the United States and Russia, there's a “0.0% chance” that Russia would survive the attack, according to Schwartz. This makes the actual possibility of nuclear war look pretty slim, no matter what Putin says.
The Smart Survivalist named the Nordic country as the safest place in the event of a nuclear war. “Because Iceland is isolated from the rest of the world by the North Atlantic Ocean, it would be very difficult for a nuclear missile to reach Iceland without being detected first,” it said.
Lead has long been considered "the element of choice" for radiation shielding due to its attenuating properties. Lead is a corrosion-resistive and malleable metal. Lead's high density (11.34 grams per cubic centimeter) makes it an effective barrier against X-ray and gamma-ray radiation.
Shielding: Barriers of lead, concrete, or water provide protection from penetrating gamma rays. Gamma rays can pass completely through the human body; as they pass through, they can cause damage to tissue and DNA.
Lead aprons, lead blankets, and various other types of lead shielding for radiation are the most effective material to fight off x-rays and gamma-rays.
At a distance of 20-25 miles downwind, a lethal radiation dose (600 rads) would be accumulated by a person who did not find shelter within 25 minutes after the time the fallout began. At a distance of 40-45 miles, a person would have at most 3 hours after the fallout began to find shelter.
Fallout can circulate around the world for years until it gradually falls down to Earth or is brought back to the surface by precipitation. The path of the fallout depends on wind and weather patterns.
Surface temperatures would be reduced for more than 25 years, due to thermal inertia and albedo effects in the ocean and expanded sea ice. The combined cooling and enhanced UV would put significant pressures on global food supplies and could trigger a global nuclear famine.