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This Is What It Would Be Like If A Nuclear Bomb Went Off In Your Home Town

Online tool maps the scale of devastation

Nuclear bomb
Nuclear bomb



Nearly six million people dead, homes flattened and millions more poisoned by a huge plume of radioactive poison which would spread for 130 miles.

That would be the effect of the largest Soviet hydrogen bomb ever detonated, if it was dropped on central London.

Destruction would spread from Horsham in the South to Luton in the north - and casualties would spiral after the initial blast killed and injured nearly 10 million people.

Today, on the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, people are testing Nuke Map - a tool created by Alex Wellerstein at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

It allows users to see the devastation wrought by nuclear bombs - from the relatively small fission weapons dropped on Hiroshima up to the vast hydrogen bombs stockpiled by nations today.

The site offers a sobering look at the effects of nuclear warfare - and an insight into why world leaders have shrunk from using the weapons since 1945.