CHAPTER 7 - RADIOACTIVITY OF CRATERS OF MULTI-MEGATON EXPLOSIONS 1. The information in this chapter is about the very high radiation levels to be expected in craters; it need have little practical impact on current civil defense planning. It has been recognized that emergency actions near the crater (such as rescue or firefighting) would be futile in any case because of the severity of the destruction that would have occurred so close in to ground zero. In other words, there would be no surviving people to be rescued or standing structures to be saved from fires. 2. It is noted that the craters, which might have been considered for burial grounds or repositories for debris and other material damaged beyond repair by the blast, because of the high levels of radioactivity should not be counted on for such use, at least in the early months following the detonation. 3. Although mostly academic, also it is noted that the intensely radioactive crater areas are not shown or accounted for in conventional fallout prediction models, nor do they show up in national depictions of the fallout conditions associated with hypothetical nuclear attack 7 Lain studies, 1 4 ‘ LI-13