Wasteland Survivalist: A Scientific Guide to Post-Apocalyptic Survival

After speeding south for more than 60 kilometers, Gulang finally broke out of the Changbai Mountain area.

The terrain in front of us is flat and open, and the road signs indicate that we are heading towards Gushan Town, which is on the outskirts of Dandong City.

After getting off the highway, the sea is only a few kilometers away.

As I opened the car window, a damp sea breeze carrying a salty, fishy smell rushed in.

The light truck avoided the town and turned onto country roads.

The wheels rolled over the dirt road, passing through fields of withered farmland.

Finally, it stopped on a slightly elevated earthen embankment.

Before me stretched the vast and boundless Huanghai Sea.

The greyish-green seawater surged and pounded against the muddy coastline under the dim light.

The surrounding area consists of large, abandoned aquaculture ponds.

Like a neat chessboard, it divides the mudflats into squares.

Arriving at the nearest passenger terminal, the waiting hall was completely empty.

As far as the eye could see, there wasn't a single boat in the harbor, and not even a small sampan could be found in Gulang.

Without hesitation, he launched the drone that had accompanied him all the way.

The search along the coastline yielded no results whatsoever.

The footage transmitted by the drone showed that it was more than ten kilometers southeast of the coast.

There are also two islands, one large and one small.

As seen on the map, they are Dalu Island and Zhang Island, both of which are local tourist attractions.

Since the initial ash from the nuclear explosion has settled, this area is far from the volcanic eruption zone.

There was a dusty feeling in the air, but visibility was better than inland areas.

Several large ships are moored at the north pier on Dalu Island, while there are more than a dozen small ships at the east pier.

The island is dotted with numerous resort hotels, yet there is no sign of any human activity.

This puzzled him greatly, so he decided to head east to see Zhangdao Island.

Just as the drone's camera turned east, a flash of light suddenly appeared in the distance, but it was impossible to see what it was.

Gu Lang then adjusted the gear on the remote control to "S" and entered sports mode.

With the drone's motors operating at full power, it quickly climbed to an altitude of 500 meters in a short time.

From this God's-eye view, everything around becomes crystal clear.

He switched to a telephoto lens and zoomed in on the image.

Several huge craters appeared in what was originally the Dandong urban area.

It was extremely large in scale, with its edges showing a radial collapse.

Both its width and depth far exceeded the craters he had seen in other cities before.

It's almost at the level of a meteorite crater, and the crater isn't a complete circle.

Further on the ground, several unnatural, charred ring-shaped marks can be seen.

It appears to be a large area of ​​charred ruins.

Gu Lang immediately realized that it was the effect of multiple shock waves superimposed.

This means that Dandong City has been subjected to a terrible series of ground-based nuclear strikes.

When multiple nuclear bombs explode in succession within a very short period of time, their destructive power far exceeds that of a single nuclear warhead.

Its leap in destructive power is not a simple matter of "1+1=2".

According to publicly available research reports, three consecutive nuclear strikes were carried out on a target area.

The destructive power generated is more than three times that of a single nuclear strike of the same yield.

After the first nuclear bomb explodes, it will not only directly destroy the target area.

More importantly, it will create a large number of cracks in the soil and rocks.

These fissures provided new channels for the propagation of subsequent shock waves.

This greatly reduces the energy attenuation of shock waves as they propagate through the medium.

Subsequent nuclear bombs, especially the explosion of a third nuclear bomb.

It will encounter the residual shock waves that have not completely dissipated after the previous two explosions.

When superimposed, they form a more destructive Mach wave.

The heat generated by the three nuclear explosions will continue to accumulate, further exacerbating the overall destructive power.

The glass layer formed at the bottom of the pit by the melted quartz sand is clear evidence of this.

A nuclear explosion releases a massive amount of neutrons and gamma rays at the moment of its explosion.

This type of radiation exposure lasts for a very short time but in extremely high doses, and can quickly lead to death or acute radiation sickness.

In a nuclear strike, the instantaneous kill radius is determined by the explosive yield and altitude.

People within this area would immediately be exposed to a lethal dose of radiation.

Outside this range, radiation levels drop sharply with distance, greatly increasing the chances of survival.

The second and third explosions could release massive amounts of instantaneous radiation from different directions and distances.

Even if someone is lucky enough to be in the non-lethal dose zone during the first explosion and is not killed by the shock wave and light radiation.

The instantaneous radiation from the subsequent second and third explosions would then cause a "cumulative dose" to him.

This can cause mild cases to rapidly progress to severe cases or even death.

This is what is known as "saturation coverage" and "finishing blow effect".

The most terrifying aspect of this method of attack lies in the "persistent multiplication" and "salinization effect" of radioactive contamination.

A single explosion typically creates an elliptical pollution zone that extends downwind.

Multiple explosions from different directions can cause their contamination zones to intertwine and overlap.

The entire target area and its surrounding vast area will be turned into a heavily polluted zone.

This means there is no safe evacuation route at all.

Each explosion produces a large number of long-lived radioactive isotopes.

Examples include Strontium-90 with a half-life of 29 years and Cesium-137 with a half-life of 30 years.

Repeated explosions can inject an astonishing number of long-lived nuclides into the environment, where they will be deposited in soil and water.

Long-term radioactive toxicity can be dozens of times greater than that of a single explosion.

This means that the region will be unsuitable for human habitation for decades or even centuries to come.

The city of Dandong, now a ruin, is shrouded in a gloomy, deathly silence.

Gu Lang strongly suspects that several high-yield nuclear warheads exploded there in succession.

The drone's camera turned west, and the outline of Zhuanghe City could be barely seen.

Although some collapsed ruins can be seen, the main framework of the city is still intact.

After retrieving the drone, Gu Lang activated the Geiger counter.

With a gentle sea breeze, the reading was 26 microsieverts per hour.

This is already an astonishing number in an open environment.

Arriving at the coastal aquaculture ponds behind the passenger station, he found a wooden stick.

They climbed over the embankment and poked through the silt below.

The Geiger counter, which was covered with a plastic bag, was placed aside.

Nuclear radiation has strong penetrating power, and ordinary plastic bags have very limited blocking ability, so they will not affect the test results.

Soon the machine started beeping an alarm, and the readings exceeded 1000 microsieverts per hour.

Startled, Gu Lang immediately dropped the stick, grabbed the machine, and ran back to the car.

"I was planning to dig up some razor clams to eat, but that's impossible now."

He immediately started the truck and left the aquaculture pond.

The situation has been basically clarified: the two islands are only tens of kilometers away from the nuclear explosion point, with no obstruction between them.

The people on the island may have died of acute radiation sickness some time after the nuclear explosion.

This explains why only boats are seen, but no people.

The intensity of a nuclear strike that would be suffered by a major coastal city is incomparable to that of a typical inland city.

If the situation in Dongdu is this serious, the situation in the more important cities of Lüshun and Dalian is probably even worse.