Vulnerability of populations and the urban health care systems to nuclear weapon attack – examples from four American cities

Table 2 Affected populations from 550 Kt surface detonations in 4 downtowns

Effect Type	City
	Washington	New York	Chicago	Atlanta
Combined Fallout and Thermal	2,678,638	6,456,056	3,398,527	1,243,165
Combined Fallout and Blast	2,541,368	6,001,862	3,167,676	1,178,751
All Thermal categories	923,401	3,309,930	1,614,371	459,639
All Fallout categories	2,170,917	5,042,904	2,430,731	1,064,928
All Blast categories	708,710	2,554,308	1,251,965	353,925
All Thermal categories	923,401	3,309,930	1,614,371	459,639
> 25 cal cm² Zone	211,206	903,591	316,847	122,572
> 13–25 cal cm² Zone	135,752	521,519	305,725	68,720
3rd Degree Burn Zone	94,202	315,388	190,071	42,141
2nd Degree Burn Zone*	165,557	509,926	256,134	71,496
1^st Degree Burn Zone	316,684	1,059,506	545,594	154,710
All Fallout Categories where mortality > 0.5%	2,170,917	5,042,904	2,430,731	1,064,928
Mortality > 90%	1,016,206	3,229,502	1,473,337	614,767
> 50–90%	583,486	493,519	261,381	123,160
> 10–50%	311,292	678,783	180,456	119,567
> 0.5–10%	259,933	641,100	515,557	207,568
All Blast categories over 1psi	708,710	2,554,308	1,251,965	353,925
> 20psi	20,710	158,889	52,950	19,476
10–20psi	32,703	155,019	34,704	25,437
3–10psi	158,287	596,150	231,341	77,985
2–3psi *	138,363	537,279	316,306	71,105
1–2psi	358,647	1,106,971	616,664	159,922

• Approximately 500,000 additional daytime workers will be affected for Washington and 600,000 for New York for the second degree burn zones or the 2psi zone. No data are available for Atlanta and Chicago.

ISSN: 1476-072X