

Overwhelming doses of radiation are fatal in hours or days. Serious doses of radiation can cause horrific radiation sickness, major damage to organs and all other tissues, bleeding from the mucous membranes, paralysis, and more. Low amounts of radiation damage can cause generalized illness, damage to your DNA, reproductive harm, and other relatively minor but long-term problems.

This type of damage is caused by beta radiation, and though they are not deeply penetrating compared to the deadlier gamma rays they can still cause major and irreversible harm. In either case, it will cause significant radiation contamination and likely long-term health effects. When it comes into contact with the skin or is ingested, and when it is nearby.

Nuclear fallout is directly harmful to people and animals in two ways. You can play around with this nuke map tool and simulate a nuclear explosion in your area.Ī dirty bomb can create highly concentrated fallout over a smaller area and even a nuclear power plant accident can likewise generate significant fallout in a localized area. Something like a nuclear warhead detonation close to the ground can generate a tremendous amount of fallout and scatter it over a wide area.

This fallout can contaminate and injure or kill people and animals, and make food, water, equipment, and medicine unusable. Nuclear fallout is nothing more than debris generated by a nuclear incident that has been made dangerously radioactive.įallout is lifted into the air as particulates, dust- or sand-sized, in the aftermath of the event where it will drift on wind currents and settle back to the ground while still dangerously radioactive.
