What would happen if terrorists set off a nuclear bomb in a major city?
Terrorist use of a nuclear bomb would be an historic catastrophe. If a crude nuclear bomb with an explosive equivalent of 10,000 tons of TNT (10 “kilotons” in the language of nuclear weapons) were set off at Grand Central Station on a typical work-day, some 500,000 people might be killed, and hundreds of thousands more would be injured, burned, and irradiated. The direct economic damage would likely be in the range of $1 trillion, and the reverberating economic effects throughout the United States and the world would come to several times that figure. In 2005, then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned that such an attack “would stagger the world economy and thrust tens of millions of people into dire poverty,” causing “a second death toll throughout the developing world.” The terrorists would surely claim they had more bombs already hidden in U.S. cities, potentially provoking widespread panic and economic disruption. In short, America and the world would be changed forever.
