Full-scale nuclear war could kill 5 billion people, shows new study

Five billion people would die in a modern nuclear war with the impact of a global famine, likely to far exceed the casualties caused by lethal blasts, a new study showed

Five billion people would die in a modern nuclear war with the impact of a global famine -- triggered by sunlight-blocking soot in the atmosphere -- likely to far exceed the casualties caused by lethal blasts.
 

Scientists at Rutgers University mapped out the effects of six possible nuclear conflict scenarios. A full-scale war between the US and Russia, the worst possible case, would wipe out more than half of humanity, they said in the study published in the journal Nature Food.

The estimates were based on calculations of how much soot would enter the atmosphere from firestorms ignited by the