At least 76,000 people killed and more than 245,000 wounded. Westminster Palace, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace obliterated.
This would be the aftermath of an atomic bombing on London, similar to the one on Hiroshima during the Second World War.
Today, August 6, marks 80 years since the US president Harry Truman deployed a nuke on the Japanese city in 1945 – a decision that changed the course of history.
To date, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima – and in Nagasaki three days later – are the only two such weapons used in a war.
By modern day standards, the bombs – codenamed ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’ – are considered small.
As nuclear-powered states including Israel, Russia and Iran get more involved in global conflict, there are fears that the world has not learnt lessons from the catastrophe in Japan.
What would happen if a bomb went off in London?
Nuke Map, created by Alex Wellerstein, a nuclear historian at the Stevens Institute of Technology, shows what would happen if a bomb like the ‘Little Boy’ explodes in London.
The number of fatalities is put at 76,470, but modeling casualties from a nuclear attack is difficult and it is not definitive.
Fallout effects are deliberately ignored, because they can depend on what actions the government takes after the detonation.
Another website, from the Outrider Foundation, puts the number of people killed at just above 30,000.
This also depends on whether the weapon detonates on the ground, or in the air.
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A map created by Metro shows the fireball in London. In the first millionth of a second after detonation, the bomb materials heat up to unimaginable and extreme temperatures.
The fireball forms immediately from the burning bomb residue. Anything – or anyone – inside the fireball would be vaporised in an instant.
Even outside this boundary, the heat would be intense enough to kill everyone.
Within the green circle, the dose of radiation would likely be deadly in about one month. And at least 15% of survivors will eventually die of cancer as a result of the exposure.
Most buildings would collapse, even within the ‘moderate blast damage’ radius. Injuries would be universal and fatalities widespread, Wellerstein warns.
People in the ‘third radiation’ boundary would suffer third degree burns, which could cause severe scarring and could require amputation.
While there is a bunker hidden underneath London in case of a nuclear bomb, it’s not thought to be accessible to the public and would instead form a government ‘protected crisis management facility’.
What happened in Hiroshima, and then Nagasaki?
The atomic bomb dropped by the US on Hiroshima destroyed the city. More than 140,000 people were killed. A second bomb dropped three days later on Nagasaki killed 70,000 more.
Relations between Japan and the US had deteriorated in the years before, leading to an attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, in which Japan sunk several ships and destroyed hundreds of planes.
Their aim was to cripple the US fleet in the Pacific fleet. After entering the White House, president Truman took the decision to bomb Japan, in favour of an on-the-ground invasion.
The result of the detonation of ‘Little Boy’ was approximately 80,000 deaths in just the first few minutes. Thousands died later from radiation sickness in Hiroshima.
Japan then surrendered on August 15, finally putting an end to the Second World War.
What lessons has the world learned since?
Japanese officials have repeatedly urged world leaders to stop relying on nuclear weapons as deterrence and take immediate action toward abolishment – not as an ideal, but to remove the risk of atomic war.
A silent prayer was held across Japan on Wednesday morning as it marked the 80th anniversary of the bombing.
Kazumi Matsui, Hiroshima’s mayor, warned that global reliance on nuclear weapons for self defence is a ‘flagrant disregard of the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history’.
He also warned that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – signed by more than 70 countries but opposed by the US and Russia – is ‘on the brink of dysfunctionality’.
The world seems more uncertain than ever at the moment, with the Doomsday Clock moving to 89 seconds to midnight earlier this year and tensions extremely high across the globe.
The so-called 12-day war between Israel and Iran sparked real concerns that the world could be drawn into a global nuclear conflict – US president Donald Trump saying he would attack Iran ‘without question’ if they broke rules again.
The US ‘totally obliterated’ three key Iranian nuclear sites after previously suggesting the US was on the verge of World War Three.
Plus, the war between Russia and Ukraine is still going, with Putin said to be spending £830billion to rearm his troops, and sending a warning to ‘everyone’ after Trump moved nuclear submarines.
From a UK perspective, the government is planning to buy a dozen warplanes all capable of carrying nuclear weapons, and it’s thought the threat to the UK from Iran is ‘now comparable with Russia’.
Last year, Britain’s top general, General Sir Patrick Sanders, warned civilians could be conscripted to fight a war against Russia, saying the UK’s military is much ‘too small’ to handle such a conflict on its own.
General Sanders’ remarks come nearly two years after he said Britain was facing a ‘1937 moment’ – a reference to the two years preceding the Second World War.
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