• INDIA: General election 2024 (Graphic DUE Mar 19, 11:00GMT)
  • POLITICS: Trump’s trials (Graphic DUE Mar 19, 15:00GMT)
  • CONFLICT: U.S. confirms death of top Hamas leader (Graphic DUE Mar 19, 16:00GMT)
  • CONFLICT: Gaza famine mass death fears (Graphic DUE Mar 19, 16:00GMT)
 Nuclear war would cause global famine infographic
Graphic illustrates the devastating effects of a nuclear war.
GN43104EN

CONFLICT

Nuclear war would kill 5 billion people through famine

By Ninian Carter

August 16, 2022 - More than five billion people would starve to death if there was a nuclear war between the U.S. and its allies and Russia, a new study finds.

A new study by Rutgers University in New Jersey, published in the journal Nature Food, models what would happen if the United States and its allies entered into a full-scale nuclear war with Russia.

The report hypothesises that more than 150 million tonnes of soot would be generated as a result of firestorms created by the detonation of atomic bombs – the U.S. and Russia possess 90% of the global nuclear arsenal.

The rise of sun-blocking stratospheric soot would devastate the Earth’s climate – creating a nuclear winter – and severely limiting terrestrial and aquatic food production for years.

The authors estimate the number of direct fatalities would be 360 million people, with over 5 billion people expected to perish from starvation two years later as food supplies are exhausted and global trade all but ends.

The warning comes after UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres recently said, while citing the Middle East, North Korea and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation”.

Sources
PUBLISHED: 16/08/2022; STORY: Graphic News
Advertisement