CHAPTER 7
RADIOACTIVITY OF CRATERS OF MULTI-MEGATON EXPLOSIONS
There are a number of considerations that make a general knowledge
of close-in fallout levels desirable.
They include the need to rescue
and evacuate people from badly damaged central areas; the need to fight
fire there lest it spread into otherwise habitable areas and there
destroy precious resources of people, food, and equipment; and even
the possible use of the crater itself as a ready-made trash dump during
subsequent cleanup.
Knowledge of crater exposure levels, though poor, is sufficient to
answer the question for civil-defense planning:
radiation-exposure rates
in and near surface-burst nuclear craters will be in the order of 10°R/hr
at 1 hour,,and fallout there will be substantially complete in 20-30
minutes.’
(Actual data vary from 3000 to 40,000 R/hr.) Any such level
like
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precludes the use of the crater and approaches to it for times
wecks, even on an emergency basis.