The Hiroshima Files: Photos of the aftermath of the Atomic Bomb

The Hiroshima Files - Slide Show - NYTimes.com

"The 'Little Boy' that devastated Hiroshima in 1945 altered the Earth’s axis, while also (albeit briefly) changing the way war would be waged. It virtually leveled an entire city — the scope of which is only hinted at in these dramatic photographs — and, followed a week later by a second, smaller detonation on Nagasaki, did what determined American military bombing was unable to do: it forced a Japanese surrender."

http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/the-hiroshima-exhibit-that-almost-wasnt/?hp

http://www.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/hiroshima-ground-zero-1945

 

I have heard of many claims of nuclear weapons doing this or that. But I've never heard of this. I'd say its probability zero and a claim that belongs in the "bad science" category.

 

Further, while the damage was slightly less, the Nagasaki blast was noticeably larger. The yield of the Hiroshima bomb is difficult to determine precisely, as it was the only bomb of the sort ever detonated and the situation was clearly not a controlled test, but Los Alamos later determined the yield was around 15 kt. The results were published in a report called The Yields of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Nuclear Explosions by John Malik. The yield of the Nagasaki device is better known, as similar devices were tested both before and after and is generally accepted to have been around 21 kt.

The report is now online and can be read here:

http://library.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/getfile?00313791.pdf

So while the Hiroshima blast was more deadly, it was almost certainly smaller.

 

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Hiroshima 65 years after the Atomic Bomb.

FT