he Castle Bravo Nuke is one of the US’ greatest disasters.
This absolute monster created a fireball 7.2km wide in the first second of detonation that could be seen from 400km away. Within a minute the mushroom cloud had reached a height of 14km and a width of 11km and it was growing fast. Within 10 minutes it was a staggering 40km high and and 100km wide and expanding at a speed of 360mph.
As a result the cloud contaminated over 18000km2.
The light from the blast meant those nearby became almost transparent, being able to see their bones through their skin.
All this occurred because it was only supposed to have a yield of 5-6mt but to the shear horror of everyone involved they were wrong, very wrong. Instead it had yield of 15mt, making it 1000x more powerful than the bomb dropped on hiroshima.
As a result, the fallout spread all the way to Australia, Japan, Europe and the US. Almost $700m in todays money was paid out to Japan and the inhabitants of the islands nearby. Only one person directly died from the radiation but thousands more received radiation burns, developed cancer and experienced birth defects, miscarriages or stillbirths.
