Ground zero
Ground Zero (English for ground zero ) referred to in the military language , the location on the earth's surface vertically below the site of the explosion of a nuclear bomb or missile . Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 , the term has also stood for the destroyed World Trade Center in New York ( Ground Zero New York ).
origin
In aviation, “ground” refers to the level of the earth's surface , see for example “ Above ground level ”. "Zero" ( zero ) is the horizontal distance from the explosion. The worst damage is to be expected at "Ground Zero". The term comes from technical and military circles and has been used almost exclusively in connection with nuclear explosions since the Manhattan Project , but also for the two non-nuclear explosions Minor Scale and Misty Picture , which simulated nuclear explosions. The German term "Bodennullpunkt" is also used outside of military terminology.
The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in New York expanded the term: Since then, it has been used as a synonym for the area of the destroyed World Trade Center worldwide. That is why the expression Ground Zero no longer only stands for the Japanese victims of the atomic bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki , but also for the victims of New York (9/11) , a destruction of an apparently different kind.
Examples
Well-known places that bear the name Ground Zero are
- near Los Alamos (USA), where the first experimental atomic bomb was detonated,
- in Hiroshima (Japan), where the atomic bomb " Little Boy " was dropped on August 6, 1945 ,
- in Nagasaki (Japan), where the “ Fat Man ” atomic bomb was dropped on August 9, 1945 ,
- in the desert of Nevada (USA), where the US government detonated more than 800 atomic bombs from 1951 (see Nevada National Security Site ),
- at Chernobyl (Ukraine), where a nuclear incident occurred on April 26, 1986 in the fourth block of the local nuclear power plant , see Chernobyl disaster (In this context the term Ground Zero is only used by US authorities),
- in New York (USA), where the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed by a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001; see. World Trade Center Site ,
- a café set up in the center of the Pentagon because it was suspected during the Cold War that the building would be the target of Soviet nuclear warheads.
Ground Zero is also the German name of a book by Patrick Lynch . In it, Ground Zero is the location where an epidemic broke out .
For the stretch of coast of the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh , on which the devastating tsunami disaster first struck on the morning of December 26, 2004 , the term ground zero has also been used in local parlance since the beginning of 2005 . The reason for this may have been the widespread devastation. The Ground Zero of Banda Aceh is located in the district of Ulee Lheue whose buildings were, with the exception of the main mosque completely destroyed. In addition to the mass grave and park that has existed since December 2005, a memorial is to be erected directly on the coast to commemorate the victims of the disaster in Banda Aceh and Indonesia.
Web links
- Ray, Gene: Hiroshima's Long Shadow , in: Friday May 3, 2002.