Estimates Project Millions of Deaths If US, NKorea Go to War

A war with North Korea would result in the loss of many human lives, according to hypothetical estimates by several sourced.

Two million Americans, South Koreans, and Japanese would die, according to a hypothetical estimate put forth by The Washington Post's Jeffrey Lewis based on public statements, intelligence reports, and blast-zone maps.

And the death toll in Tokyo and Seoul could result in anywhere from 400,000 to 2 million deaths if North Korea were to use nuclear weapons, according to 38North, a project of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

"With possible thermonuclear yields with the same number of weapons, the number of deaths could range between 1.3 and 3.8 million," Michael J. Zagurek Jr. wrote for 38North.

Downtown Los Angeles, according to Alex Wellerstein, a professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, would be wiped out if North Korea targeted it with a 250-kiloton nuclear weapon.

The Pentagon estimates the number of casualties in South Korea at 20,000 each day, Rob Givens, a retired Air Force brigadier general who spent four years stationed on the Korean peninsula, told the L.A. Times.

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