Fallout shelter
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designated to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War.
During a nuclear explosion, matter vaporized in the resulting fireball is exposed to neutrons from the explosion, absorbs them, and becomes radioactive. When this material condenses in the rain, it forms dust and light sandy materials that resemble ground pumice. The fallout emits alpha and beta particles, as well as gamma rays.
Much of this highly radioactive material falls to Earth, subjecting anything within the line of sight to radiation, becoming a significant hazard. A fallout shelter is designed to allow its occupants to minimize exposure to harmful fallout until radioactivity has decayed to a safer level, over a few weeks or months.
See also
- Abo Elementary School
- Ark Two Shelter
- Blast shelter
- Bomb shelter
- Bunker
- Bruce D. Clayton, author of Fallout Survival and Life After Doomsday
- Collective protection
- Command center
- CONELRAD
- Continuity of government
- Project Greek Island
- Vivos (underground shelter)
Nation specific:
- Central Government War Headquarters, The UKs Gov. War Headquarters at Corsham, Wiltshire.
- Diefenbunker
- HANDEL, UK's former national attack warning system
General:
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