“60,000 killed instantly. The blast and subsequent fires might completely destroy the entire infrastructure and all ships in the Port of Long Beach and the adjoining Port of Los Angeles. Six million people might try to evacuate the Los Angeles region. Two to three million people might need relocation because fallout will have contaminated a 500 square kilometer area….

By Josh Manchester
In the wake of North Korea’s unconfirmed nuclear test, one tends to focus the mind once again on the awesome destructiveness of nuclear weapons and the terrible logic that prevented their use for so many decades in the Cold War.