The Third World War: August 1985

The human casualties resulting from the detonation of the nuclear weapon were horrific. The day had been a sunny one, so that many people were lightly dressed and therefore susceptible to burn injuries on their exposed skin. The centre of Birmingham had been crowded with shoppers and others going about their normal business. Fortunately, schools were empty and some people were away on holiday. Nevertheless, a population of approximately 2 million, including that of Birmingham and its surrounding towns, was exposed to the holocaust. Of this population approximately 300,000 were killed within minutes by the heat and blast effects of the weapon or were subsequently to die unattended by any medical or rescue team. A further 250,000 received blast or burn injuries of a very serious nature, in need of urgent hospital treatment. Another 500,000 received lighter injuries which could conceivably be treated either by themselves or with first aid. Only a very small proportion of the population within the Birmingham area was entirely free of injury. The medical and hospital facilities available to support this catastrophic level of casualty were themselves savagely weakened.

Half the hospitals in the area were either destroyed or rendered totally unusable by the explosion. Of the remainder only a quarter were able to function as normal whilst the rest had suffered damage which severely limited their ability to cope with more than their original patient load. Doctors and ambulance services had suffered casualties in proportion to that of the civil population and so were hardly able to cope with an emergency. By any measure the enormous numbers of people requiring medical assistance so swamped the remaining medical facilities that the help these were able to give was almost negligible. In addition to the physical and human destruction, many of the survivors within the area were suffering from severe shock. They were helpless and in no position either to help themselves or to organize any form of co-ordinated help for others.

The fire-fighting services had also been severely disrupted, almost three-quarters of the fire-fighting equipment within Birmingham itself having been destroyed. Most of the firemen who responded to the emergency by making their way to their fire stations found that their equipment was either buried or so damaged as to be unusable, while those who were able to get their appliances out found that they were quite unable to move them along the roads. Additionally, there were so many fires burning that any sort of priority was almost impossible to decide upon. Those nearest to the fire stations received what little effort was available. Within Birmingham and its close environs the firemen who were able to deploy equipment found that the water distribution system had suffered so much damage that hydrant pressures were inadequate to support any real fire-fighting capacity. This was not the case in the surrounding towns, however, where subterranean water systems had remained undisturbed and where effective pressures were available.

Within the city of Birmingham central administration and organization had virtually ceased to exist. Normal telephone communication systems linking police, fire-fighting services, medical facilities and local administration had all been destroyed. In the preceding week a Sub-Regional Headquarters had been established at the government offices in South Yardley. These offices were approximately nine kilometres away from the centre of the explosion but they were of modern infill construction and had suffered considerable damage as a result of the blast. As offices they were generally unusable and, more important, all telephone communication had been destroyed. The personnel manning the headquarters were relatively unscathed but, having at first no form of communication with outside agencies, even by road, they were unable to co-ordinate any activity. It was some time before emergency radio communication, from what was left of local and public utility radio, together with RAYNET Ham Stations (the net of amateur or ‘ham’ radio stations), could begin to help.

A further problem was the total failure of electrical power in the Birmingham area. The widespread destruction of electrical distribution systems had led to the automatic cut-out of supply, and destruction was so widespread that the distribution system throughout that area of the Midlands centred on Birmingham had been affected. Many of the power stations supplying the area had automatically shut down as their imposed load had ceased to exist. Thus the whole of Birmingham, with its surrounding towns, was without electricity.