Sofie remembers:
"'I remember the tail-end of the Years of Hunger, and then the Years of Madness, and the Socialist Depression - people in rags, starving; you could see their bones - and a riot once, and the marching uniforms, and the great craters -...'" (IV, p. 37)
She remembers the craters? But how will they be removed from the landscape?
In another of Poul Anderson's post-nuclear war scenarios, great "Craters" remain and come to be inhabited. See Existence And Craters. That future also has Centers which are the large apartment buildings under another name.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And maybe some craters were turned into ponds, which might be useful for both recreational and agricultural purposes. If they were large enough, of course.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I can't see the radiation dying down that fast.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Unless missiles with very short half lives were used. So a few decades might be be enough to make them safe.
Ad astra! Sean
Paul: I think you underestimate how fast the radiation diminishes. Rebuilding at Hiroshima & Nagasaki started within days. The immediate burst of gamma rays from the nuclear explosions caused radiation sickness. People who went into those cities in the days after to help the victims were not harmed by residual radioactivity.
Ground bursts would create more radioactive material than the airbursts of those two cities but still the longer the half life of the material the lower the radiation levels from that material. Deliberately putting cobalt casing around the bomb to create Co-60 would mean avoiding the area for years would be a good idea.
Kaor, Jim!
Exactly, it depends on what types of missiles were used.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment