The nuclear destruction of London

[James G]

Nukemap link to this blast, full of information.

nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=36&lat=51.5000875&lng=-0.1261282&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&psi=20,5,1&zm=13

[James G]

The nuclear destruction of London


Tariq knew where the bomb came from. Zaid hadn’t been told that detail.

Tariq was aware what the bomb really was. Zaid had been lied to there.

The two of them drove the bomb into the heart of London. It was late morning and the white van, with Tariq behind the wheel and Zaid beside him in the cab passenger seat, went along the South Bank via York Road. They headed towards the County Hall roundabout, to the southwest. Traffic was heavy and was causing a delay.

“What time is it?”

There was a time display on the dashboard. Zaid asked the question of Tariq yet he must have seen what the van’s clock said. He asked because he was nervous but his question wasn’t answered.

“We’re going to be a little bit late.” Tariq was mentally calculating the time it would take them to get where they were going. “Not too late, just a few minutes off.”

The traffic started moving. Neither man said no more. Tariq drove them around the roundabout along with the other moving vehicles. He cut inside a double-decked red bus – a hallmark of London – to get onto Westminster Bridge Road a few seconds earlier than he would have done otherwise.

Zaid stared out of the window. His mind wasn’t on the images of London before his eyes.

“There it is.”

Tariq smiled as he saw the clock tower which rose above him as he approached it. Zaid said nothing in response though to that and didn’t even give it a look.

They drove over Westminster Bridge. The River Thames flowed them and where they could find the British Government was ahead.

When the traffic slowed ahead, upon reaching the Whitehall side, Zaid brought his attention back. If he hadn’t of had, Tariq would have made sure that he did.

This was no time to be distracted.

“It is three minutes after twelve.” Now Zaid was reading that clock.

“They’ll all be inside by now.” Tariq was utterly confident of that.

“Yes. And they’ll all die, inshallah.”

Zaid reached down below where he was seated. In the footwell, there were two automatic rifles. These were AK-74U carbines – with a short barrel designed for the use of parachutists – and a weapon of great significance in propaganda to those who inspired both Tariq and Zaid. He put one of those in Tariq’s lap and placed the second in his own.

Tariq knew that they would never get the chance to use them. Zaid believed that they would.

As the van reached Parliament Square, beyond Elizabeth Tower in which Big Ben sat, what Tariq had gazed up upon as they came over the bridge, it was turned to the left. Tariq drove them down beside the Houses of Parliament. He spoke his final words to Zaid, still lying to him as he had been doing so for a long time. “We get out, start shooting and then the bomb goes off. We have two minutes to get clear and inside the building. The bomb will stop anyone coming after us.

Start shooting, Zaid, and don’t stop.”

Zaid was willing to sacrifice himself, to go down shooting and also to see a bomb go off. Tariq had never doubted that of his friend. The man who had gave them the bomb and set their mission into action had not wanted him to know though, fearing that if anyone beyond Tariq knew, word would eventually get out.

Two men can share a secret, he said, but three cannot.

So Zaid had been lied to. He thought he and Tariq had brought into London a ‘standard’ bomb.

As he spoke, Tariq opened the circuit breaker attached beneath the steering wheel by flicking a near-hidden switch. The bomb was already armed but this was the lone safety check. Zaid didn’t see what was done. He was looking outside and imagining the chaos he would cause with his rifle before and after the bomb went off.

“I am ready!”

“Wait… wait… now!” Tariq slammed on the vehicle’s breaks as he swung the wheel over. The van came to a violent stop. It was in Parliament Square, right in front of Parliament.

Zaid jumped out of the vehicle. His rifle was in his hands. His eyes swung for people to shoot at. They would suffer the consequences for the actions of their government.

Tariq didn’t do the same thing. The driver’s side door remained closed and his rifle stayed in his lap. “For my father, who you all murdered,” he quietly said, before adding an afterthought to justify this, “and all of my brothers and sisters elsewhere around the world too.”

He closed his eyes and then slammed his palm hard twice on the steering wheel where the horn was.

There was a blinding flash and no more for neither Tariq nor Zaid.


The bomb detonated at five minutes after midday. It was a Wednesday lunchtime. Inside Parliament, Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) were taking place inside the Commons Chamber. With recent political events leading to what the media had deemed a ‘showdown’ today, those whom the man who had given Tariq the bomb wanted to see dead would all be in there.

He himself had long left London and Britain too. With his diplomatic passport, he flew home. He didn’t want to he inside the country when the bomb went off.

It was a thermonuclear device with an explosive yield of thirty-six kilotons. Exploding at ground level, a surface burst in military terms, much of its potential was robbed due to that. If it had blown up in the sky, there would have been far more destruction unleashed. An aeroplane, a missile, even a helicopter might have achieved that. But Tariq had a van and a van would do.

The blast created a fireball. That fireball atomised everything around it. The Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, New Scotland Yard, government buildings along Whitehall as far as Downing Street… they were all inside that fireball. Everything and everyone inside the radius of the fireball was gone forever. A huge crater would be dug into the ground, including through tunnels of the London Underground rail network.

The air blast shot outwards in every direction. On the edges of the fireball, the force of it was equivalent to twenty pounds per square inch (PSI). Buildings were blown down, even the most-sturdy of those. The destruction levelled off the further way from Westminster Square but the damage done was unparalleled in terms of any such attack ever launched against one city. As far north as Soho, to the west out to Hyde Park Corner, to Pimlico & Vauxhall in the south and out to the Elephant & Castle in the east if buildings weren’t brought down, they could fall soon enough.

Radiation went further outwards away from where the blast had been. Flash radiation would kill so many. The victims would survive the fireball and blast wave but soon succumb to quite the horrible death.

Glass shattered everywhere, again far outwards in every direction. The pressure was down to just one PSI but this was enough. Office blocks in The City and beyond would be left with without windows. The glass would maim and kill everywhere extending from Regents Park to Knightsbridge to Stockwell to Camberwell to the Tower of London to Shoreditch. People already blinded when their eyes were drawn to the flash, were now knocked down as the shockwave continued outwards.

The ground burst would mean fallout. The winds would blow that northeast and away from London. Maybe it wouldn’t be much but it would be enough to kill many for a long time to come.


The government centre of London had been wiped out in a flash. All of those politicians had been at the very heart of the explosion attending PMQs. Royalty was killed too with the monarch and heir both losing their lives. Senior civil servants aplenty were right in the area of destruction or would quickly lose their lives too. All around all of this important people slain, were the millions of Londoners caught up in the blast and murdered too. Their lives were taken in the fireball, the blast wave, the flash radiation and then the utter chaos which would follow.

In an act of terror, the nuclear destruction of London had occurred.

The world would never be the same again.

[Zyobot]

So, it seems you've gone forward with the 'non-designated survivor' idea you mentioned earlier. Considering that this act of terror made 9/11 look like child's play, I wonder what will come next.

[James G]

May 4, 2019 18:49:42 GMT Zyobot said:

So, it seems you've gone forward with the 'non-designated survivor' idea you mentioned earlier. Considering that this act of terror made 9/11 look like child's play, I wonder what will come next.

That's where the idea came from though this is really just a one-shot piece.
This is nuclear terrorism, yes, and nothing else will compare.
The future? Not very good for many, many people. It isn't something I currently intend to pursue though.

[archangel]

The list of succession to the UK throne is extensive. There will be many survivors, but it might require to search for them first.
Likewise, there's going to be MPs that were away for any number of reasons.
The House of Lords can also be reconstituted after a while.
Who's the primary authority to coordinate in the first moments in such a scenario? Military or civilian authorities in the immediate vicinity of the affected area?
The bomb would have left a track, (IIRC in terms of the radiation and radioactive material employed), that could be used to track its path and origins (and the responsible group).

[Dan]

May 4, 2019 23:15:15 GMT archangel said:

The bomb would have left a track, (IIRC in terms of the radiation and radioactive material employed), that could be used to track its path and origins (and the responsible group).

I think this is what has prevented nuclear terrorism from becoming more of a thing, no country capable of generating the nuclear materials to make a bomb dares supply them to a terrorist group for the very real fear of reprisals in kind.

I think there was a risk of it towards the end of the cold war when it was uncertain who had control of the former Soviet Union's nuclear stockpile, but since then it has lessened.

[James G]

May 4, 2019 23:15:15 GMT archangel said:

The list of succession to the UK throne is extensive. There will be many survivors, but it might require to search for them first.
Likewise, there's going to be MPs that were away for any number of reasons.
The House of Lords can also be reconstituted after a while.
Who's the primary authority to coordinate in the first moments in such a scenario? Military or civilian authorities in the immediate vicinity of the affected area?
The bomb would have left a track, (IIRC in terms of the radiation and radioactive material employed), that could be used to track its path and origins (and the responsible group).

I was thinking that the Duke of Cambridge (William) would be fine: the family home for them is in Norfolk and even with the Queen and Prince of Wales in London, the Crown would move there. If not, there are his three children and then the Duke of Sussex (Harry) who lives near Windsor.
There will be MPs not there, even at PMQs. Maybe a junior Cabinet member or a minister of state would be in a position to form a government. They are all Privy Councillors. as to the Lords, few attend every day.
I assume that within a day, there would be 'order' established outside of London but not inside. Even people fine and not in danger would panic. The city would be gripped with chaos.
Walking back the cat on a bomb would be done fast. I'd imagine that this would be like 9/11 was with almost every country in the world saying they would do anything they could - even if that was just fluff - but allies like the US, Five Eyes, France and others fast helping to track down who was responsible. Britain's own CBRN detection force - from the RAF Regiment transferring to the British Army - are out in Suffolk.

May 5, 2019 4:58:48 GMT Dan said:

I think this is what has prevented nuclear terrorism from becoming more of a thing, no country capable of generating the nuclear materials to make a bomb dares supply them to a terrorist group for the very real fear of reprisals in kind.

I think there was a risk of it towards the end of the cold war when it was uncertain who had control of the former Soviet Union's nuclear stockpile, but since then it has lessened.

This bomb came from a nation state, though probably with the full government there very much in the dark. I had an idea of the country though purposefully left that out.