The Medical Implications of Nuclear War (1986) / Chapter Skim
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13 Psychological Consequences of Disaster: Analogies for the Nuclear Case
13 Psychological Consequences of Disaster: Analogies for the Nuclear Case
Pages 290-316
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From page 290... ...
M'ddlesex Hospital, London, England INTRODUCTION No disaster experienced in recorded history resembles the potential destruction of major nuclear war. Nonetheless, past disasters can give us pointers to the likely responses of those who survive the immediate effects, though it will always be necessary to interpret the findings carefully with due allowance for the differences that restrict the applicability of the comparison.
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From page 291... ...
, and later adapted by Leivesley (1979) , can be used to divide disaster agents into five categories: Atmospheric: cyclone and hurricane, tornado, drought, snow, fire Hydrologic: flood, storm surge, Tsunami Geologic: earthquake, landslide, volcano Biologic: epidemics, crop diseases, and biological warfare Technologic: Accident (engineered structures, transport, chemicals, nuclear reactors, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons testing, radioactive materials, fired, war (conventional bombing, nuclear weapons)
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From page 292... ...
Although Hiroshima and Nagasaki represent the only examples of nuclear bombing, the weapons used there were very much smaller in their explosive power than those that are available today. The bombings occurred without any warning, the construction of housing was very different from that of modern European cities, and the population had no knowledge of nuclear explosions or radioactivity.
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From page 293... ...
Although earthquake damage can be widespread, radio communications are generally still possible and there is no fear of immediate contamination, as would be the case with radioactivity. Massive fires resemble the effects of postnuclear firestorms, but, once again, present data are based on the fact that there is an undamaged outside world to come to the assistance of those in the fire zone.
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From page 295... ...
have looked at public perceptions of a variety of hazards and have shown that perceived risks are often at variance with actual risks. These differences may be partly accounted for by the prominence that the media gives to dramatic events, thus increasing their salience over less newsworthy occurrences.
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From page 296... ...
reviewed the literature on children's fears about nuclear war. She found that many of the studies were unsystematic, but that methodologically sound studies, which had asked large representative samples of graduating high school students in the United States neutral questions about the future, found increasing levels of alarm about the nuclear threat.
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From page 297... ...
The safety signal hypothesis should explain why the conventional bombing attacks on London appeared to cause less psychological stress than those of the V-bombs later in the war. In the first case the air raid sirens and the eventual all clear provided reasonably reliable signals of safety, but with the rockets no such indication was possible.
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From page 298... ...
The wide area of television coverage meant that people in safe areas converged on the danger zone to contact friends and relatives or, in the largest number of cases, simply because of curiosity. From the viewpoint of the families in the danger area, their many attempts to confirm the warnings frequently yielded contradictory information, and of those who evacuated immediately, as many as one-third returned home, often infiltrating through police lines which had been set up to prevent looting.
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From page 299... ...
Although 52 percent received their warnings from mass media (as opposed to 28 percent from peers and relatives and 19 percent directly from the authorities) these people were far more likely to ignore the message or spend time attempting to confirm it than those who got more direct warnings.
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From page 300... ...
Helens volcano about 16 days after moderate earthquakes indicated that it had come to the end of a 123-year dormant period. At the time when the telephone survey started on a sample of 173 respondents, a state of emergency had been declared for the surrounding area, and when data collection was completed two days later, the news media reported that the immediate crisis was over.
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From page 301... ...
By way of a general summary, the authors conclude that the intensive dissemination of hazard information during a short period of imminent threat of disaster sensitized people to the impending event. Effects of Warnings, and Features That Lead People to Heed Them Hansson et al.
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From page 302... ...
conducted a telephone survey of 248 heads of household living within 10 miles of Three Mile Island to find out which factors determined whether people evacuated during the accident at the nuclear plant. Measures of coping style showed little effect, but situational variables such as proximity to the plant, disruption of telephone service, and specific directives to evacuate were significantly related to the decision to leave.
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From page 303... ...
The myth of personal invulnerability, which is so strong in the threat phase, is now called into question. Faced with the reality of death, usual assumptions disintegrate, and mood and beliefs oscillate wildly.
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Life itself seems sufficient reward, and in particular, joining up with loved ones who were feared lost brings intense happiness. The quite random fact of survival may be rationalized by a feeling of personal invulnerability and mission.
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From page 305... ...
They are highly dependent, talkative, and childlike, seeking safety and forming unstable social groups. In this state they remain highly vulnerable and emotionally labile.
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From page 306... ...
found that conflicting group loyalties and contradictory roles were significant factors affecting individual behavior in critical situations. Typically, it is the person without family ties who leads rescue work, while the others generally run to their homes to discover if their families are in danger.
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From page 307... ...
The very long conditioning period of the phony war served to give the population time to develop coping responses. Duties were allocated which served to give key community members an important role in air raid preparations, thus providing them with something to do and setting a coping example for others to follow.
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From page 308... ...
All this occurred despite the fact that there was warning of attack and pauses between attacks and that 1.5 million women and children had been evacuated. The fact that the bombing could not be maintained without pause gave the population time to make some adjustments, and the fortuitous fact that a bomb fell near Buckingham Palace while the East End was receiving the brunt of the attack defused an explosive social divide and made Londoners fee} that they were all in it together.
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From page 309... ...
Summary The findings from conventional bombing offer only a very partial view of reactions to nuclear war. The power of nuclear weapons is so great that massive destruction can be caused virtually without warning on a society which is now even more interdependent and tightly coupled as an industrial system.
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From page 310... ...
. very badly injured people evacuated in my direction .
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From page 311... ...
The most impressive thing was the expression in people's eyes bodies badly injured which had turned black their eyes looking for someone to come and help them. They looked at me and knew I was stronger than they....
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From page 312... ...
Passing planes caused panic, and victims tried to hide till they passed. Most survivors had witnessed terrible scenes, piles of dead bodies heaped up in streams, mothers and children locked in each other's arms, a mother and her fetus still connected by its umbilical cord, all dead (Akizuki, 1981~.
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From page 313... ...
American Psychiatric Association Task Force Report No.
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From page 314... ...
1977. Emergency decision making: A theoretical analysis of responses to disaster warnings.
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From page 315... ...
1981. Dispositional and situational variables related to evacuation at Three Mile Island.
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From page 316... ...
1973. Effects of coping behavior in different warning signal conditions on stress pathology in rats.
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