World War 3: Here's what would happen if a nuclear bomb was dropped on London during WW3

Russia and Ukraine remain at war – more than a year after Russia invaded and occupied parts of Ukraine in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which first begun in 2014
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The invasion on February 24 2022 has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides, and displaced around eight million Ukrainians who have fled the country.

Britain continues to provide military support for Ukrainian troops – including sending NLAWS, javelins and other weapons.

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The Russian president announced a partial military mobilisation, with 300,000 reservists set to be called up as the Kremlin attempts to regain ground in the face of a counter-attack by Ukraine’s forces.

And Mr Putin said “it’s not a bluff” when he vowed that Russia would use its weapons of mass destruction if its territory was threatened.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has told the UN General Assembly in New York that “evil cannot be trusted” as he urged the world to unite to end Russian aggression against his country.

In his speech, Mr Zelensky said a nuclear-armed Moscow must be stopped from “pushing the world to the final war” and he also accused Russia of weaponising everything from food to energy.

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Russia’s full-scale invasion has prompted widespread condemnation with Kyiv accusing Moscow of falsely using genocide law to justify its invasion. Russia meanwhile has called on the International Court of Justice to throw out a case brought against it by Ukraine.

Nuclear bombNuclear bomb
Nuclear bomb

As the conflict shows no sign is resolution any time soon, The News has previously revealed that Portsmouth was one of the key Russian targets during the cold war along with many other cities across the country.

NUKEMAP calculates the predicted number of fatalities and injuries that would be caused - based on the size of a the bomb dropped on the city – for this story we have selected the option of the bomb exploding as an airblast.

So if the ‘Little Boy’ 15 kiloton bomb, which was dropped by the US on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in WW2, fell on the City of Westminster of London it is estimated that 76,460 would be killed and 245,960 injured.

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The fireball would have a radius of 180m, the air blast radius - which would severely damage buildings – would be 340m and the radiation radius – where death rates would be between 50% and 90% - would be 1.2km.

However the ‘Little Boy' hasn’t been used since WW2, so if a 350kt W-78 nuke – currently the largest option on NUKEMAP – was used on London it would be much more devastating.

With an estimated 565,980 people being killed and 1,629,370 injured if it fell on the City of Westminister

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The fireball radius would be 0.63km, the air blast radius - which would severely damage buildings – would be 4.95km, the thermal radiation radius – causing third degree burns, scaring, disablement, and can require amputation - would be 7.67km.

All of this is hypothetical and the risk of a nuclear bomb falling on London or anywhere in the world is extremely low.

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