Would Chicago Survive a Nuclear Bomb? There's An App For That

CHICAGO, IL — North Korea announced this week that its military might attack the U.S territory of Guam — prompting President Donald J. Trump to promise to meet any attack with "fire and fury like the world has never seen" — and there are concerns that a nuclear launch from the country could reach as far as Los Angeles, Chicago or even New York City. But what would really happen if a medium- or long-range missile with a nuclear bomb reached your city?

A web tool called NUKEMAP claims it can tell you. Straddling the line between entertainment, fantasy and terrifying reality, the Google Maps mashup is a tool for visualizing the real-world impact of a nuclear explosion on specific locations. Here’s how it works:

Users choose their preferred weapon of mass destruction and their target by selecting from a list of pre-set cities or choosing a point on the map. Which bomb they choose depends on how much damage they want to do — are you aiming for total annihilation or do you just want to create a little chaos? Your choices start with the American-made “Davy Crockett,” which is relatively benign when compared to the Russian-made “Tsar Bomba,” a Russian-made bomb that means business.

Watch: Foreign Policy Analysts Fear The Dangers Of US-North Korean Threat

Once the bomb is detonated, ringed circles appear around the targeted cities, showing the radius of the fireball, the radius of thermal radiation and an outer radius where buildings would likely survive the blast. It graphically displays the extent of injuries and damage to buildings from firestorms. (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest news Chicago — or other neighborhoods. And iPhone users: Check out Patch's new app.)

If a weapon similar to one North Korea tested in 2013 were detonated in Chicago, for example, about 102,180 people would die and another 219,810 would be injured, according to NUKEMAP. The rest of the scenario is pretty ugly, too, NUKEMAP says: "Without medical treatment, there can be expected between 50% and 90% mortality from acute (radiation) effects alone. Dying takes between several hours and several weeks."

NUKEMAP was created five years ago by historian Alex Wellerstein, who specializes the history of nuclear weapons and secrecy. Over the last five years, the website has hosted more than 99 million virtual detonations, Wellerstein wrote on his nuclearsecrecy.com blog. He said he typically sees viral spikes in site visits around the anniversaries of the bombings of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945,and Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945.

An intercontinental ballistic missile launched Friday by North Korea burned out before reaching Japan, but its height and range indicated that major U.S. cities like Chicago, L.A. and New York could be within Kim Jong Un's scope, according to Newsweek.

But U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this week insisted that there is no imminent threat from North Korea, adding, "Americans should sleep well at night."

Despite Tillerson's confidence that the U.S. remains safe from a nuclear threat, Trump took to Twitter Wednesday morning to reaffirm his threat from a day earlier by reposting video of him warning that Pyongyang would be "met with fire and fury like the world has never seen" if it made more threats to the U.S. In another tweet, Trump said, "Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!"

Watch: Richardson: North Korea Situation 'Grave,' Not Crisis

Photo by South Korean Defense Ministry via Getty Images/Getty Images News

Beth Dalbey (Patch National Staff) contributedd to this article