This page shows a simulation of the 100000 kt nuclear bomb (100000 kt) detonated over Beijing, China. The map displays the estimated fireball, the zones of heavy, moderate and light blast damage, thermal radiation and ionizing radiation. Click «What does that mean?» for a detailed legend, or run your own detonation on the main page.
100 megatons was the design yield of the Soviet AN602 — the Tsar Bomba — before its final stage was throttled back to 50 for the 1961 test. No weapon of this size was ever deployed: the bomb weighed 27 tonnes, no missile could lift it, and the arms race moved towards many smaller warheads instead. This scenario is therefore a physical ceiling, not a military one. The rings are enormous: a fireball about 12 km across, total destruction (20 psi) to roughly 13 km, collapse of houses (5 psi) to about 32 km, third-degree burns on exposed skin to about 75 km in clear weather, and broken windows (1 psi) out to about 100 km.
What that means in Beijing
Centred on Tiananmen Square, the 13 km zone of total destruction covers everything inside the Fifth Ring Road — the Forbidden City, the CBD, Zhongguancun, the Olympic Park and Beijing West station. The 32 km collapse ring extends well past the Sixth Ring Road to Tongzhou, Changping, Daxing, Shunyi and Capital Airport — around 20 million people. Burns to 75 km reach Daxing Airport, Langfang, Zhuozhou, the Badaling and Mutianyu sections of the Great Wall and Yanqing; the 100 km ring of broken windows takes in all of Beijing municipality and reaches Tianjin's northern districts. The Western Hills would shadow the valleys behind them, but the plain to the east and south is open. See the 1.2-megaton B83 scenario for a real weapon over the same point.
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