Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: smb@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Steven M. Bellovin)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Nuclear Devastation
Message-ID: <7251@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 8 Jun 89 01:01:44 GMT
References: <6958@cbnews.ATT.COM> <7203@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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From: smb@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Steven M. Bellovin)

In article <7203@cbnews.ATT.COM>, hjsdvm@ziebmef.uucp (Howard J. Scrimgeour) writes:
> >Europe.  Their criterion was producing enough fallout to kill everybody
> >who wasn't in a real deep shelter.  They assumed ground bursts to maximize
> >fallout.  I believe the article appeared in 1978 or thereabouts.
> 
> What did they consider to be a "real deep shelter"? Two feet of 
> packed earth reduces radiation by 2 orders of magnitude (99%).

I hope we're not getting too far afield, and straying into politics, but...

The two feet of earth is mostly going to be useful against prompt
radiation; the fallout will persist for years to come.  I don't recall
the half-lives of all the ``interesting'' isotopes, but strontium-90
and cobalt-60 are short-lived enough to be hazardous, and long-lived
enough to hang around for long after you can hide in a shelter.  And
iodine-131, though much shorter-lived, would be dangerous to those
without very well-stocked shelters.  (Note that iodine and strontium
are especially bad because of how easily they're absorbed.)


		--Steve Bellovin