"Geoffrey Sinclair" wrote in message ...
hiroshima facts wrote in message . ..

I tried to track down the 50% claim, and it apparently is based on
"Medical Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan" published by Oughterson
in 1956. I don't have that on hand, but I understand that on page 84,
they say that 48% of people within 2 km of ground zero were killed.
And "within 2 km of ground zero" was counted as the "affected area"
for the estimate I was quoting.

In which case the affected area being defined as significantly less than
the area of blast and fire damage. There were deaths and damage
beyond the 2 km/6,600 feet radius.

I'm guessing the estimate tried to pick the area where most of the
buildings were leveled, and came up with 2 KM. Since a modern nuclear
attack that wanted to level a city would use either large enough
warheads (or a large enough numbers of warheads) to level everything,
this seems fair to me, although perhaps I should use a more precise
term than "area affected".




It is also different to the measure used for Tokyo, since it does not
use dead plus homeless, substituting a 2 km circle instead. It makes
the atomic attacks look more lethal by changing the choice of
measurement. The comparison between the two as reported is
therefore invalid.

The Tokyo raid destroyed 16 square miles, which is the area of a
circle of around 2.25 miles or 3.6 km in radius, what was the death
toll like for the 2 km circle?

As far as I know, there was no concentration of deaths in the Tokyo
raid that would change the ratio if we focused on a smaller area.




On a comparative scale Tokyo comes in at 7 to 8%, Hiroshima 31%
deaths when you count the dead and homeless as the "affected
population", making the atomic strikes about 4 times as lethal.
Though this ignores the reality Hiroshima was not under air raid alert
at the time but Tokyo was, which could account for much to even all
of the difference in lethality.

I don't think it could account for all of it.

Are there *any* instances of conventional weapons ever killing more
than 8% (either of the "area affected" or the "area leveled")?