06 September 2010

On the subject of nuclear war



You may find this interesting. Neil B a really strange guy who converted to Judaism, became a Muslim and then a Hindu he was a more complicated person than me.

Anyway he once told me 75% of the Chinese population can go underground in case of a nuclear attack. I never believed him for years until I found out about it a couple years ago. I must have walked past the entrance 100 times in the many visits to Beijing I make and never noticed it.

There is one in Shanghai too as well as Chongqing and who knows how many more...

Hey does anybody remember the fallout game series?



Heh

3 comments:

  1. He has to be underestimating the Chinese population. I mean, there are quite a lot of underground shelters throughout China, yes, and many of them are quite extensive, but 1.3 billion (Well, 75% would be 970 million) is quite a lot of people, which take up quite a lot of space, and would require quite a lot of food and water to survive. Food and water that would take up even more space, and I sincerely doubt has been stockpiled for all these years.
    In short, maybe China's population at the time of world war II, 450 million, might be able to escape underground, (and even that absolutely boggles my mind) but it's grown since then.

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  2. Agreed but in nuclear warfare the aim is mass civilian casulties therefore nuclear weapons would be used on big city targets for maximum effect. So you'd only need to put people in the cities in shelters.

    If you survive with 450 million or even 25% of that 112.5 million or even 10% you have in effect 'won' the war. As westernised nations like the UK and US have bunkers but only for the wealthy and leaders the Cheyenne mountain complex I think is somewhere which would surive.

    The rest of us get to burn in the nuclear fires.

    Additionally the 1960s many Chinese people were still agricultural farmers. So unless you are going to bomb each and every bit of the country since nuclear fireballs are subject to inverse square laws. A great many people in the countryside would survive too. Still the survivors would get to live in the ashes.

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  3. Those shelters are over 50 years old, under the force of a nuclear blast those tunnels will easily collapse, crushing and trapping everyone inside.

    Also Bunker Busters.

    Even if casualties were minimal, many of China's industrial centers would be in ruins. Without them, fighting a war and winning becomes a much more difficult task, especially when you need supplies for over 3 million troops. I wouldn't worry about nuclear war though. MAD will see to that. Besides, they have 300 bombs, we have 10,000.

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