What happens to your body if you’re caught in a nuclear strike? Nuclear expert breaks down all the changes

ATOMIC bombs have been deployed against humans just twice in history resulting in devastating effects on the body. 

Here’s what happens in a nuclear strike and what it could do to your body.

What happens to the human body in a nuclear strike?

Nuclear weapons can cause instant or prolonged deaths to tens of thousands of civilians.

The estimates that nearly 40,000 people died in the 1945 Nagasaki bombing from being immediately incinerated by the blast, burned in the ensuing fires, over-exposure to radiation or succumbed to injuries. 

There are projections that estimate the death toll to be much higher, but even conservative guesses are shocking. 

Let’s walk through a nuclear explosion and its effects on the human body from detonation to the onset of a radioactive wasteland.

What happens in a nuclear explosion? 

The explosion of a nuclear bomb starts with a process called “nuclear fission” which is the splitting of an atom’s nucleus. 

As the nuclei of uranium-235 atoms are split by collisions, fission fragments and neutrons fly, setting off a chain reaction of expanding energy.

This energy release creates a massive nuclear fireball in millionths of a second. 

In Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford’s character eludes death by nuclear destruction by hiding in a refrigerator. 

Nuclear fireballs can reach about 100,000,000 degrees Celsius which is, of course, hot enough to vaporize any building, refrigerator or person unlucky enough to be at ground zero.

To escape widespread fatalities of a bomb the size of the one used to devastate Nagasaki, a person must be at least from the blast. 

But even then, danger exists beyond the region of the fireball. Chris Griffith, the creator of AtomicArchive.com, told The Sun that beyond the incinerated area there is “nothing but this massive wave of debris shards that are flying hundreds of miles an hour.”

Shattered glass or heavy debris can and will cause fatal injuries to people who avoided incineration.