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The Blast Wave
The Coming Nuclear War
End Times Truth
When we think of the destructive effects of
ordinary conventional bombs it is not necessarily a fireball that immediately
comes to mind.
Although normal chemical bombs detonate with
explosive thermal events and typically involve rapid oxidation reactions which
are accompanied by considerable heat and fire, much of the damage we are
familiar with is done by blasting the surrounding area through an
outwardly-propagating explosive wave front.
The destructive power of conventional bombs
comes from a rapidly expanding force called the blast wave that emanates from
the center of the blast zone in a generally spherical shape.
Nuclear explosions also have a blast wave. Of
course, with a nuclear detonation, the forces are many orders of magnitude
greater than conventional explosives, and even more powerful fusion devices can
explode with forces orders of magnitude beyond fission bombs.
As a thermonuclear fireball expands, the
temperatures at its heart reach millions of degrees. The air trapped at the
center of the blast rapidly heats up and expands with unimaginable outward
velocity and force.
Radiant energy coming out of the core at the
speed of light further heats up the air and materials far away from the blast
zone.
As a result of these expanding gases and outward
flow of energy, a spherical blast wave is created which begins to grow in
diameter at a velocity slightly faster than the speed of sound.
If there were no other destructive effects of
atomic warfare, the blast wave alone would still be enough to flatten any major
city in a matter of seconds.
The International Committee of Experts in
Medical Sciences and Public Health set up by the World Health Organization
reported:
“Almost half of the total
energy released in nuclear explosions is in the form of a blast wave, the
colossal build-up of pressure in the vaporized material of the bomb giving rise
to a wave traveling through the air at supersonic speed…
“The human body can be crushed
by the blast wave up to distances where the overpressure is one atmosphere,
i.e. the total pressure is double the atmospheric pressure.
“If people at a short distance
from where the explosion took place were shielded from the thermal wave and the
initial ionizing radiation, they would die mainly from direct blast damage,
particularly to the lungs” (from: U.N. Chronicle Perspective; Effects of Nuclear War: The Medical
Viewpoint, 1983).
For a one-megaton thermonuclear bomb, the area
of total destruction from its blast wave would encompass a circle with a radius
of approximately 4.5 miles.
Within this range every building and structure
would be blown to bits, and for many miles outside of this distance massive
damage would still occur.
Can you imagine a single bomb completely
destroying everything in a 9-mile-wide circle and solely as the result of its
blast wave?
And that represents the power of only one of
today’s “average” bombs. Read what experts say would happen if a 20 megaton
bomb were to explode in downtown New York:
“If a 20-megaton bomb were
air-burst over the Empire State Building at an altitude of 30,000 feet, the
zone gutted or flattened by the blast wave would have a radius of 12 miles and
an area of more than 450 sq. miles, reaching from the middle of Staten Island
to the northern edge of the Bronx, the eastern edge of Queens, and well into
New Jersey, and the zone of heavy damage from the blast wave… would have a
radius of 21.5 miles, or an area of 1450 sq. miles” (Fate of the Earth, Schell, p.
53).
Thus, one of the largest and most populated
cities on the face of the Earth would be totally demolished by only one such
bomb, and then just from its blast wave alone!
If a full-scale nuclear war were to occur the
combined forces set in motion by multiple blasts would have planet-wide
consequences.
Only one 20 megaton bomb exploded at ground
level would leave a crater over 600 feet deep and thousands of feet in
diameter.
The blast wave could rip a hole in the earth’s
crust so big that most of the tallest buildings in the world would be swallowed
up completely. In fact, many entire cities could easily fit within its crater.
It is interesting that most of the prophecies
that predict fire and brimstone accompanying the final battles also say that
there will be hail produced by these events.
Why hail? This effect is directly related to the
powerful up-drafts caused by the rising nuclear fireballs, which form the
characteristic mushroom clouds.
The air surrounding the blast zone contains huge
quantities of water from the atmosphere and even greater quantities of water
produced by the blast.
This moisture would rise into the stratosphere
within minutes and would result in literal ice hailstorms formed far away from
ground zero.
Before the above ground nuclear tests were
abolished, many of them were accompanied by weather disturbances such as huge
condensation clouds and hail.
Hail was also discovered to be one of the
aftereffects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts. This effect is similar to
the strong up-drafts that often accompany tornadoes and huge thunderstorms;
however, with nuclear explosions the updrafts occur with tremendously greater
energies.
Nevertheless, the hail mentioned in the Bible is
also predicted to be of another variety. We now know that the force of a
nuclear blast would send large amounts of debris into the air.
The earth that was once part of the blast-crater
has to go somewhere — it doesn’t just disappear. Part of the debris gets
reduced to fine particles and rises into the atmosphere and becomes part of the
mushroom cloud and dusty, radioactive fallout from the nuclear explosion.
However, most of the larger debris can be thrown
many miles away from the blast sight and actually become another potential
source of destructive aftereffects and fatal injuries.
Even the Pentagon admited to this hazard. The
journal Science reported the following fact:
“In congressional testimony
late last year, the Air Force mentioned casually that an attack would send
enormous boulders into the sky, ‘some of them larger than a Volkswagen'” (Science, vol. 219, p. 370).
It is not just a coincidence that Isaiah
prophesied over 2,700 years ago of these earth-shattering effects during the
final battles of the End Times.
He said,
“The earth is utterly broken
down, the earth is thoroughly dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.
“The earth shall reel to and
fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a booth; and the transgression
thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again.” Isaiah
24:19-20
Jesus prophesied that before the end comes,
natural disasters, including earthquakes, will increasingly characterize the
world environment.
These signs, he said, will be part of the “birth
pains” signaling the collapse of this age (Matthew
24:7).
Just as birth pains increase in intensity as the
moment of birth approaches, so too will earthquakes and other natural disasters
become more common as we move through the Last Days.
The description in Isaiah, however, indicates
that at some point the earth itself will seem like it’s going to be torn apart
with tectonic upheaval.
Isaiah’s prophecy may certainly involve natural
or supernatural phenomena, but the effects of a nuclear war could just as
easily be the main cause.
Even in a limited nuclear exchange, the amount
of energy released by hundreds of blasts would be so great that the very
foundation of the earth would shake.
Even a single test blast results in a shock wave
traveling through the Earth similar to an earthquake, which can be measured on
a seismograph. However, the final wars will be considerably different from a
lone nuclear test.
At The Time of the End, many missiles will be
launched from their silos at nearly the same time and explode on their targets
almost simultaneously.
Therefore, the combined effects of concurrent
explosions on the Earth’s crust would be much greater than the result of just a
single nuclear explosion, the effects of which are known, as they were
carefully measured at test sites around the world after World War II.
In areas of high seismic activity such as along
the California coast, the detonation upon all the major cities of perhaps
hundreds of warheads over a period of only a few hours would have devastating
effects on the earth’s crust.
The nuclear destruction of the major west-coast
cities would follow a path right along the main part of the San Andreas Fault.
If normal crustal movements now cause periodic
earthquakes, can you imagine the effect of thermonuclear warfare on geologic
fault stability?
The visions in the book of Revelation predict
that at the very end of the age conditions in the world will build to a final
terrible crescendo of destruction just before the Lord returns.
The Apostle John predicted that there would be:
“…thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great
earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake,
and so great…
“And every island fled away, and the mountains were not
found.
“And there fell upon men a
great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent; and men
blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague was
exceedingly great.” Revelation 16:18, 20-21
This “hail” predicted to fall
upon the earth at the end is a bit more serious than normal icy hailstones seen
with thunderstorms.
A talent of material is an ancient measure of
weight that represents about 100 pounds in modern terms (or 45.35 kilograms).
Perhaps the Pentagon’s estimate of
Volkswagen-sized boulders falling out of the sky from exploding nuclear weapons
is not so absurd after all!
The forces set in motion by the explosion of
thousands of warheads across much of the northern hemisphere will result in
tremendous earthquakes and volcanoes in every area of known seismic activity —
and also probably in regions which haven’t had such phenomena for ages.
Floods caused by dams breaking and rivers
changing course and perhaps even the very oceans themselves infiltrating on the
once-dry land will bury whole cities and towns without a trace.
For the people trapped in these areas, it will
seem, just like Isaiah described, that the very foundations of the earth are
giving way and the end of the world is at hand.
In 2015, Fox News reported that Russia had
released on state-controlled TV a report on new nuclear torpedoes they had
recently developed, a weapons system which they called the Status-6.
The torpedoes could be launched from submarines
or ships along the coasts of a targeted nation and result in major blast
effects on the coastlands as well as contaminate the surrounding ocean waters
with high levels of radioactivity.
The report stated, “Military
experts and commentators traced the nuclear torpedo concept to the 1950s, when
it was first offered by Andrei Sakharov, the father of Soviet thermonuclear
bomb who later came to defy the Soviet system and won a Nobel Peace Prize. He
proposed targeting the U.S. with high-yield nuclear torpedoes that would create
huge tsunami waves and high levels of radioactivity to render large coastline
areas uninhabitable.”
The large tsunamis that would result from these
explosions would come from the tremendous blast waves emanating from them as
they detonated below the surface of the water.
The effects on coastal cities and low-lying land
areas would be devastating.
Thus, during the early stages of the coming nuclear war, blast waves from ground-based
thermonuclear explosions will decimate cities and create massive craters, while
similar blasts off the coastlines of nations will cause cataclysmic flooding as
giant ocean tsunamis moved inland.
All of these effects would happen quickly in a
nuclear exchange. In only a single day, in only a matter of a few hours, everything
that we have ever known will change forever.
Jonathon Schell quotes Yoko Ota, an eyewitness
to the Hiroshima blast, as saying,
“I just could not understand
why our surroundings had changed so greatly in one instant... I thought it
might have been something which had nothing to do with the war — the collapse
of the earth, which it was said would take place at the end of the world, and
which I had read about as a child” (Fate of the Earth, Schell, p. 40).
End
Times Truth is about warning people
that the Coming of Christ is near and that we are living in the last days just
before His Return. During our lifetime, Bible predictions concerning the Second
Coming have been fulfilled exactly as they were described thousands of years
ago. Jesus said that we could know that his coming was near if we watched
world events and compared them to what was predicted. As the prophecies
come true before our eyes, we know that we are getting closer to the end.
While it is true that the world is heading toward a judgment day, individuals
can escape through knowledge of the truth combined with repentance and faith in
Christ (see Escape to Safety).
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