If a Nuke went off what is the minimal distance one would have to be to be safe from fallout and radiation?

Question

If a Nuke went off what is the minimal distance one would have to be to be safe from fallout and radiation?

Answer 1

No distance is really completely 100% safe because wind spreads fallout. When Chernobyl blew, the wind actually brought trace fallout from the Ukraine all the way to Canada. Of course, nothing significant...but still. It would also depend on the size of the nuke, too.

Answer 2

It all depends on the size of the blast, the type of device, the altitude at which it explodes, weather conditions at the time, geography, etc. etc..

If it's a 0.1KT device exploding at or near ground level up you're probably safe a few hundred meters away.

If it's a 100KT device at a few hundred meters, you may have to be miles away and still get blasted.

Tests were conducted in the 1950s, which showed some structures standing after a 20KT airblast 1.5 miles away in good enough condition that people inside would have survived.

Depending on wind direction, they might even have survided exposure to fallout.

The idea that nuclear explosions destroy everything and kill everyone for massive distances is bollocks. It's deliberate misinformation put out by the "peace" movement (who aren't their true intent has always been to disarm NATO so we're easy prey for the USSR).

Even a few from a smallish blast prepared troops can be safe from blast and radiation effects.

And decent reinforced concrete walls will protect civilians from such a blast at similar distances.

Fallout is waste. Therefore most devices are set either for airburst (minimising fallout) or underground detonation (preventing fallout by burrying the radioactive material with the blast).

Fallout exists of bomb material coating blast residue (mainly dirt blown out by the explosion).

If the explosion is high in the air the amount of fallout is limited to only the material of the bomb and bomb casing itself. that's a very small volume indeed.

Answer 3

Think about this... If a 2 megaton nuke went off in NYC. The resulting blast would take out all 4 boros of NYC and create a 100 foot hole composed of fused organic material much like glass. The fall out is impossible to predict, as the winds would disperse it whichever way it was blowing at the time of the explosion. There would be a dead zone of approx. 23-30 miles around the epicenter of the blast and additional dead zones depending on where the fallout was being deposited. If this wasn't enough, if you lived in Reading Pa. at the time of the blast, and happened to be looking in the direction of NYC when it went off, you would not only get skin burns but also be blinded by the flash. The distruction from a blast like this would kill tens of millions of people.  If your worry is safety, you should probably be in another country or across the US to be relatively safe. Just pray this never happens, as 5 well placed warheads of this magnatude would take out the entire country and not right away, within a few months, 80% of our entire population in the US would be dead. This is not something I would want to try to survive to tell you the truth.

Answer 4

The minimum distance you would have to be to be safe from the intense heat and the blast wave depends upon the size of the device. There is no safe distance to escape the fallout. For example, the radioactive isotope strontium 90 did not exist on earth  before 1945. After the bombing of Japan and the subsequent above ground nuclear testing,  the radioactive strontium which was produced encircled the planet and children born after that date have it deposited in their bones. Strontium has chemical properties similar to calcium, and your body incorporates it in building bone structure, so all individuals born after that date have it in their bodies.