Greatest Impact Of Nuclear Disasters Is Psychological, Not Physical, Studies Find. Mental problems following nuclear accidents are more widespread than any physical effects of radiation, studies have found. Depression and post-traumatic syndrome affect many people in certain regions, researchers say. (Photo : Athit Perawongmetha | Getty Images) In major nuclear accidents, the greatest health risk to people is mental problems, including depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, rather than physical harm from radiation leakage, studies have found.
Those problems are often made worse by exaggerated estimations of the levels of radiation leakage, say scientists in a series of studies published in the journal The Lancet. The studies mark the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States, which ended World War II. That's similar to findings on the impact of the 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in Ukraine, researchers say. © 2015 Tech Times, All rights reserved. Topic: Nuclear Free New Zealand. Nuclear-free New Zealand The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945 ended World War II but started the nuclear-arms race. From 1946 to 1996, France, the United States, and the United Kingdom used parts of Micronesia and Polynesia to test nuclear weapons. The small Pacific atolls and islands were overseas territories of these powers, and were chosen because they were far away … from them.
Both atomic and hydrogen bombs were tested. However, the tests were not remote from the Pacific peoples who lived there, and the radioactive contamination their homelands received will endure for thousands of years. New Zealand’s involvement Until 1958, New Zealand supported nuclear testing in the Pacific. Early protests Public and governmental concern about the environmental impacts of nuclear power and atmospheric nuclear weapons testing gradually grew. Peace movement Anti-nuclear legislation. Nuclear Free New Zealand | GREENPEACE New Zealand. Our legislation encompasses our stance as a nation opposing weapons of mass destruction, supports nuclear disarmament and contributes significantly to the international discussion. It is also the legislation by which we implement our regional and international obligations under different treaties with regards to nuclear disarmament. The 'kiwi disease' which is how our legislation was sometimes referred to, was seen as threatening by some countries but also as a powerful example by others because… it could spread - and it has.
Our nuclear free legislation is certainly not out-of-date, but a new generation of New Zealanders may need to be educated about why it's still relevant. New Zealand's legislation is a way of eliminating the risk of nuclear accidents for all New Zealanders while at the same time demonstrating our global commitment to nuclear disarmament. In other words it's safer for the world and New Zealand to be nuclear free. Nuclear weapons and warships Nuclear power. Nuclear weapons: a history -- New Internationalist. The Manhattan Project Scientific breakthroughs in the 1930s made atomic bomb production possible. Fearing the prospect of Hitler developing nuclear weapons, top physicists from around the world joined the secret ‘Manhattan Project’ to develop them first. Unprecedented funding came from the US. When Germany surrendered in May 1945, the Manhattan Project had not yet developed a working weapon. Many scientists lobbied for their research to be turned to peaceful purposes.
But US President Harry Truman saw the advantage of possessing the bomb ahead of the Soviet Union, and ordered the first test in July, resulting in the mightiest explosion humanity had ever witnessed. Survivor: Nagasaki bomb victim Sumiteru Taniguchi looks at a photo of himself taken in 1945. His horrific burns have required 17 operations.
Hiroshima Truman immediately decided to use this awesome weapon to attack Japan, with which the Allies were still at war. Nuclear-free legislation - nuclear-free New Zealand. It was election year in 1984, and Robert Muldoon decided to go to the polls early, on 14 July. This was due partly to a decision by Marilyn Waring, a National Party Member of Parliament, to withdraw her support for the National caucus on 14 June. She had been savagely attacked by Robert Muldoon for supporting the Labour opposition’s Nuclear Free New Zealand Bill the previous day. Labour campaigned against nuclear propulsion and weapons, but not against ANZUS. The Americans’ ‘neither confirm nor deny’ policy would make it difficult for a Labour government to reconcile these two aims.
Labour swept to power in the election and immediately made clear its intention to pursue policies that would establish New Zealand as a nuclear-free country. Five days after his defeat in the election, the outgoing prime minister, Robert Muldoon, met the United States secretary of state, George Shultz, who was in Wellington for an ANZUS council meeting. The Oxford Union debate. Nuclear testing in the Pacific - nuclear-free New Zealand. After the Second World War the United States, along with its French and British allies, frequently tested nuclear weapons in the Pacific region.
In the 1950s New Zealand military personnel observed British and American nuclear tests in Australia, the Pacific and Nevada, and vessels of the Royal New Zealand Navy served as weather ships for British tests in the Indian Ocean. In 1963 the British, American and Soviet governments agreed to ban atmospheric tests. New Zealand also signed this treaty – but India, China and France were among those countries which did not. New Zealand was involved in ongoing protest over French nuclear testing from the mid-1960s, when France began testing nuclear weapons in French Polynesia.
Mururoa (or Moruroa) Atoll became the focal point for both the tests and opposition to them. The third Labour government, led by Norman Kirk, responded by sending two navy frigates, HMNZS Canterbury and Otago, into the test area, with a Cabinet minister on board. Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered: The Story of Hiroshima. Since communications between the Hiroshima and higher military and naval headquarters had been severed, initial news that something frightful had occurred at Hiroshima came into Tokyo from nearby towns.
People reported to the navy's underground headquarters in Tokyo a "sinister cloud," an "enormous explosion," a "terrible flash," a "heavy roar. " Reports were vague and created more puzzlement than alarm. Finally, from descriptions of the city's destruction, Japanese military began to realize that what happened may have been the result of an atomic bomb-a shock to them, since most thought the Americans' progress in nuclear bomb development to be still in the "scientific investigation" stage. Truman's public announcement in Washington, D.C., 16 hours after the attack, was Tokyo's first knowledge of what had really happened to Hiroshima: "Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima.
In the meantime, army and navy personnel had been sent to investigate Hiroshima. Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered: The Story of Hiroshima. Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered: The Story of Hiroshima. First-hand accounts from survivors best convey the bomb’s impact on Hiroshima’s people. The following "Voice of Hibakusha" eyewitness accounts of the bombing of Hiroshima are from the program HIROSHIMA WITNESS produced by the Hiroshima Peace Cultural Center and NHK, the public broadcasting company of Japan. Mr. Akihiro Takahashi was 14 years old, when the bomb was dropped.
He was standing in line with other students of his junior high school, waiting for the morning meeting 1.4 km away from the center. He was under medical treatment for about year and half. The heat was tremendous . Eiko Taoka, then 21, was one of nearly 100 passengers said to have been on board a streetcar that had left Hiroshima Station at a little after 8:00 a.m. and was in a Hatchobori area, 750 m from ground zero, when the bomb fell. When we were near in Hatchobori and since I had been holding my son in my arms, the young woman in front of me said, ‘I will be getting off here.
Ms. Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered: The Story of Hiroshima. In 1958, the population of Hiroshima reached 410,000, finally exceeding what it was before the war. It is currently a major urban center with a population of 1.12 million people. Major industries in Hiroshima today are machinery, automotive (Mazda) and food processing. Interestingly enough, one quarter of Hiroshima's electricity is from nuclear power. Rebuilding efforts over the decades have been fruitful. As early as 1979, the difference between Hiroshima in the immediate aftermath and what it had become was remarkable: "In today’s Hiroshima, bustling shopping centers line covered pedestrian malls and major department stores feature a range of merchandise almost as great as their Tokyo counterparts," wrote John Spragens Jr., a staff writer for the Corsicana (Texas) Daily Sun, in an article published on August 29, 1979 .
The downtown streets of Hiroshima are now lined with high-rise buildings, and the park is green again. Consequences and Health Risks of Nuclear Bombs. The detonation of a nuclear weapon unleashes tremendous destruction, but the ruins would contain microscopic evidence of where the bombs' materials came from. The detonation of a nuclear bomb over a target such as a populated city causes immense damage. The degree of damage depends upon the distance from the center of the bomb blast, which is called the hypocenter or ground zero. The closer you are to the hypocenter, the more severe the damage. The damage is caused by several things: A wave of intense heat from the explosionPressure from the shock wave created by the blastRadiationRadioactive fallout (clouds of fine radioactive particles of dust and bomb debris that fall back to the ground) At the hypocenter, everything is immediately vaporized by the high temperature (up to 500 million degrees Fahrenheit or 300 million degrees Celsius).
Nausea, vomiting and diarrheaCataractsHair lossLoss of blood cells. Radiation Effects on Humans | Effects of Nuclear Weapons. Certain body parts are more specifically affected by exposure to different types of radiation sources. Several factors are involved in determining the potential health effects of exposure to radiation. These include: The size of the dose (amount of energy deposited in the body) The ability of the radiation to harm human tissue Which organs are affected The most important factor is the amount of the dose - the amount of energy actually deposited in your body. The more energy absorbed by cells, the greater the biological damage. Hair The losing of hair quickly and in clumps occurs with radiation exposure at 200 rems or higher.
Brain Since brain cells do not reproduce, they won't be damaged directly unless the exposure is 5,000 rems or greater. Thyroid The certain body parts are more specifically affected by exposure to different types of radiation sources. Blood System Heart Gastrointestinal Tract Radiation damage to the intestinal tract lining will cause nausea, bloody vomiting and diarrhea. Scientific Facts on the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident. Home » Chernobyl » Level 1 Context - Some 20 years ago, the most serious accident in nuclear history changed the lives of many.
Massive amounts of radioactive materials were released into the environment resulting in a radioactive cloud that spread over much of Europe. The greatest contamination occurred around the reactor in areas that are now part of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. How has this region been affected by the accident and how has it coped? Introduction The Chernobyl nuclear power plant is located in Ukraine, 20km south of the border with Belarus. The accident occurred on 26 April 1986 when operators of the power plant ran a test on an electric control system of one of the reactors. This led to a cascade of events resulting in a series of explosions and consequent fires that severely damaged the reactor building, completely destroyed the reactor, and caused the release of massive amounts of radioactive materials over a ten-day period. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. More... Nobelprize.org. The 20th century saw revolutionary breakthroughs in many fields of science and technology. Besides the many discoveries and inventions in the fields of electronics and telecommunications, few of the leaps forward had more direct impact on people's lives and society at large than the advances in nuclear science.
Below you can learn more about one particular aspect of the nuclear revolution: the development and spread of nuclear weapons. The Birth of the Atomic Age In October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II in Europe, the President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt received a letter from physicist Albert Einstein and his Hungarian colleague Leo Szilard, calling to his attention the prospect that a bomb of unprecedented power could be made by tapping the forces of nuclear fission.
The two scientists, who had fled from Europe in order to escape Nazism, feared that Hitler-Germany was already working on the problem. The Spread of Nuclear Weapons 1945-1968 Bibliography. ICAN | International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Atomic Bomb. At approximately 8.15am on 6 August 1945 a US B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing around 80,000 people.
Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, causing the deaths of 40,000 more. The dropping of the bombs, which occurred by executive order of US President Harry Truman, remains the only nuclear attack in history. In the months following the attack, roughly 100,000 more people died slow, horrendous deaths as a result of radiation poisoning. Since 1942, more than 100,000 scientists of the Manhattan Project had been working on the bomb’s development. At the time, it was the largest collective scientific effort ever undertaken. It involved 37 installations across the US, 13 university laboratories and a host of prestigious participants such as the Nobel prizewinning physicists Arthur Holly Compton and Harold Urey.
The effects of the attack were devastating. Nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapon, Enewetak: atom bomb test, 1952U.S. Air Force—Time Life Pictures/Getty Imagesdevice designed to release energy in an explosive manner as a result of nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, or a combination of the two processes. Fission weapons are commonly referred to as atomic bombs. Fusion weapons are also referred to as thermonuclear bombs or, more commonly, hydrogen bombs; they are usually defined as nuclear weapons in which at least a portion of the energy is released by nuclear fusion. World War II: total destruction of Hiroshima, JapanU.S. Air Force photoNuclear weapons produce enormous explosive energy. Their significance may best be appreciated by the coining of the words kiloton (1,000 tons) and megaton (1,000,000 tons) to describe their blast energy in equivalent weights of the conventional chemical explosive TNT.
“Enola Gay”Air Force Historical Research AgencyThe first nuclear weapons were bombs delivered by aircraft. OhioU.S. Principles of atomic (fission) weapons.