New Delhi: It can be said without any doubt that World War II was the most devastating battle in the history of human civilisation. It killed millions of people and disrupted the lives of innumerable people all over the world. It brought even the most powerful and advanced nations at that time down to their knees as chaos and disorder engulfed them. But above all, World War II witnessed the usage of nuclear weapons for the first and only time in battle. The United States, by dropping the two bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki towards the end of the war demonstrated the advancement of humans in terms of weapons and how the entire world can be wiped out in a few blows.
How many nuclear weapons can destroy the world?
Every year on August 29, International Day against Nuclear Tests is observed to raise awareness about the devastating and long-term effects of the tests involving nuclear weapons or any other nuclear explosions. The day calls for a world free of those weapons as they can spell doom for the entire humanity.
According to an article by Zhang Tiankan published in ‘ThinkChina’, if we calculated based on the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then we would need 100 atomic bombs to destroy about 2 billion lives. As per the UN State of World Population report published in 2023, the world population was at 8 billion. So we would need to detonate about 400 atomic bombs to wipe out the human race.
It would be difficult to destroy the entire planet as we would need millions of nuclear weapons to do that. But we can destroy humanity, as per Tiankan. The United Nations has estimated that over 2,000 nuclear tests have been conducted with around 22,000 nuclear weapons globally. They are enough to destroy humanity and other biological organisms on this planet numerous times.
According to a study published in the Nature Food journal with Dr Lili Xia of Rutgers University acting as the lead of the research, if nuclear-armed two countries are engaged in a limited battle with those weapons, using less than three per cent of the global nuclear weapons supply, then it could result in the death of up to 2.5 billion people globally and mass starvation. The report estimated that if the US and Russia engaged in an all-out nuclear war then it would result in more than 5 billion deaths.
Nuclear weapons are not just killing machines
Nuclear weapons won’t just kill millions of lives in an instant but would also have tremendous long-term effects which would destroy life on this planet. The ionizing radiation of the weapons would contaminate the environment and have long-term consequences on health including cancer and genetic damage. According to reports, physicians projected that around 2.4 million people all over the world would die from cancers due to atmospheric nuclear tests conducted between 1945 and 1980.
Even if less than one per cent of the nuclear weapons are used, the global climate would be disrupted and billions of people would starve due to famine. If thousands of nuclear weapons are denotated, then there could be a nuclear winter, destroying our fragile ecosystem. The effect would be most terrible on the developing countries.
In recent years, through treaties and agreements among the major countries, the testing of nuclear weapons has been reduced. Only a handful of countries have nuclear weapons with others not having the resources to build one or simply doesn’t want to create them. The countries with nuclear weapons, despite being bound by agreements, have not given up their arsenal. Today, around 12,512 nuclear weapons remain and nuclear-armed countries have well-funded, long-term plans to modernize their arsenals. More than half of the world’s population still lives in countries that either have such weapons or are members of nuclear alliances. While the deployment of nuclear weapons has reduced since the Cold War, they are not being physically destroyed.
World War II witnessed the usage of nuclear weapons for the first and only time in battle. The US, by dropping two bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, demonstrated how the entire world can be wiped out in a few blows. knowledge Knowledge News, Photos and Videos on General Knowledge
