Australia and New Zealand: The last refuge after nuclear devastation
The initial moments following a nuclear attack would be utterly terrifying. Expert Annie Jacobsen explains that most individuals would perish in fires or from radiation sickness. Only two countries worldwide might sustain life: Australia and New Zealand.
Annie Jacobsen is an investigative journalist and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her latest book, Nuclear War: A Scenario, elucidates nuclear war and the initial aftermath of a nuclear attack globally.
The author appeared on Steven Bartlett's podcast, The Diary of a CEO, where she discussed the potential state of the world if a nuclear bomb with a yield of one megaton hit the USA or the UK. The scenario depicted by the journalist is horrifying.
In the first seconds of the attack, many cities would disappear from the earth's surface, annihilated by an unimaginable temperature exceeding 180 million degrees Celsius.
A burst of thermonuclear energy and extreme heat, soaring to around 180 million degrees Celsius, would engulf everything in a radius of about 14 kilometres. The forceful winds would bring buildings down, and the fires triggered in the aftermath would ignite even more flames, as noted by the American journalist.
Those who survived the attack would slowly begin to perish in agony. This is due to illness or the "megafire."
Those who initially survived would still face lethal radiation sickness, leading to a painful death within minutes, hours, days, or weeks. And even if they withstood that, the so-called "megafire" would ultimately claim their lives, as described by Annie Jacobsen.
The "megafire" would encompass an area of hundreds of square kilometres. The expert explains that living organisms could observe the blaze.
It appears that only the residents of Australia and New Zealand might survive a nuclear attack of such magnitude.
In some parts of the world, farming could still continue, providing a slim chance of survival. Meanwhile, places like the USA and Ukraine would be buried under snow. Additionally, the nuclear assault would so drastically harm the ozone layer that living underground would become essential, according to Jacobsen.
