On March 9, 1945, B-29 bombers in the U.S. Air Force began dropping incendiary bombs on the city of Tokyo. This raid, known as "Operation Meetinghouse," caused incredible destruction, killing perhaps 100,000 people and burning out fifteen square miles of the city. Incendiary bombings continued in the months to come, targeting other Japanese cities and killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians.
James M. Lindsay, CFR's senior vice president and director of studies, says the firebombing of Tokyo should remind us of the destructive power of conventional weapons. During the war, he points out, conventional bombings accounted for far more civilian deaths in Japan than did the nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He argues that more recent conflicts, from the Rwandan genocide to fighting in Iraq, continue to illustrate the destructive power of conventional arsenals.
tl;dr : Tokyo was very, very hot during the last stage of WW2
The big difference is that firebombing ends pretty fast. Nukes will make the land uninhabitable for decades and the survivors can look forward to cancer/deformed babies.
The big difference is that firebombing ends pretty fast. Nukes will make the land uninhabitable for decades and the survivors can look forward to cancer/deformed babies.
I'm pretty sure that meltdowns like Chernobyl are a lot worse on the long-term effects than nuclear bomb detonations. Hydrogen bombs are even "cleaner" than the atomic bombs were, especially if they use a lead tamper.
The big difference is that firebombing ends pretty fast. Nukes will make the land uninhabitable for decades and the survivors can look forward to cancer/deformed babies.
Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki cleaned up nicely though, whereas something like Pripyat remains a radioactive wasteland.
The nukes also never hit the ground, they exploded in midair and the blast radius did its job. Whatever radiation there was in the atomic bombs, it was swept away by the wind. It wasn't like Chernobyl where the radiation literally drenched the earth.
