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India-Pakistan II: NRDC Estimates South Asian Nuclear Casualties A nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan — involving two dozen nuclear weapons and creating fallout — would kill millions of people but leave a majority of both populations alive, an independent report estimates, as the two countries face off and world leaders express concern that the crisis might escalate (see GSN, May 28). India and Pakistan have the ability to “produce unimaginable loss of life and destruction,” says the report, produced by the Natural Resources Defense Council. It adds, however, that “they do not reach the level of ‘mutual assured destruction’ that stood as the ultimate deterrent during the Cold War.” If India and Pakistan both launched a dozen 25-kiloton nuclear warheads against each other — targeting cities and impacting the ground to create more fallout than an explosion in the air — 99 percent of the Indian population and 93 percent of the Pakistani population would probably survive, according to the report. Each country’s military forces would remain intact and be able to continue and even escalate the war, the report said. According to the council’s estimates, 22 million people in South Asia would be exposed to lethal radiation doses in the first two days following the attack. Another 8 million people would suffer severe radiation sickness, potentially causing death. The blast, fire and fallout would also cause serious destruction within one and one-half miles of each bomb crater, encompassing 8.1 million people. In a smaller scenario, if the two countries each launched five 15-kiloton bombs — similar to the bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima — in the air over each other’s cities, slightly fewer than 2.9 million people would die within five kilometers of ground zero. People suffering severe injuries would number 1.5 million while 3.4 million would suffer slight injuries, according to the report. The Arsenals The NRDC estimated that India has 30 to 35 nuclear warheads and Pakistan has up to 48. The warheads have explosive yields of five to 25 kilotons, similar to the two nuclear bombs that the United States dropped on Japan, according to the report’s estimates. Used in South Asia, however, the bombs would kill three to four times more people due to the population densities in the cities (Natural Resources Defense Council release, June 4). For further information, see: Carnegie Endowment Nuclear Status Map Carnegie Endowment World Missile Chart Natural Resources Defense Council
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