.Chapter 22 Sweeping the World

On the afternoon of July 14, the last escape cabin successfully landed in northwestern China.

In order to reflect international humanitarianism, China Astronautics temporarily adjusted its evacuation operation, allowing the two escape capsules that were the first to take away the United States, Russia and the European Union space station. The subsequent evacuation capsules docked with the Chinese space station and picked up the Chinese astronauts.

Of course, China's news media have not forgotten to take this opportunity to hype.

Perhaps it is because of the weak mouth and short hand. When making related reports, Western news media adhered to the consistent principle of "honestness" and made objective reports. Russian news media even praised China's aid actions, claiming that this is the best proof of the beneficial traditional Chinese and Russian tradition.

Shortly after dark, China Space Administration closed all artificial satellites in orbit.

Although it doesn't make much sense to do so, no matter whether the artificial satellite is working or not, the powerful particle storm will instantly burn down the electronic equipment on the satellite, destroy solar panels, and detonate fuel for changing orbit maneuvers, causing the satellite to completely lose its repair value. However, in theory, there is still a glimmer of hope in doing so, at least some military satellites operating in orbits can have repair value.

In any case, repairing a satellite is much cheaper than re-launching it.

At the same time, other countries have successively closed artificial satellites operating in orbit.

About two hours later, the particle storm arrived on Earth, and the first one was affected was the United States, because it happened to be early in the morning at this time.

In less than five minutes, all wireless communication equipment on the East Coast of the United States was paralyzed.

Next, the substation equipment of several high-voltage transmission lines was burned, resulting in a large power outage in the eastern region. Although government agencies and power companies at all levels mobilized a large number of manpower to urgently repair some damaged substation equipment, due to the severe fire at the substation center in West Virginia, large-scale power outages in the eastern region lasted for a full week. On that day, serious power equipment failures occurred in the central and eastern regions and the central and western regions. Only the western region was well prepared and had less losses, and some cities resumed power supply that night.

Relatively speaking, the southern hemisphere with the same longitude is less affected.

Mainly, it is now summer in the northern hemisphere and is more susceptible to particle storms.

For Canadians, especially those living in the northern region, the impact of particle storms is more intuitive. That night, extremely bright aurora appeared above the Arctic, with a intensity of hundreds of times that of the usual year. The closer to the North Pole, the brighter the aurora.

A group of Arctic scientific expedition teams took a few photos, and the bright aurora seemed to be falling on the ice.

Starting from the United States, particle storms have gradually swept the world.

Beijing time, on the morning of July 15, the power equipment in the eastern part of Heilongjiang Province in China was paralyzed first. Within the next five hours, the power systems across the country experienced serious failures, at least tens of thousands of substations were damaged, and tens of thousands of kilometers of ultra-high voltage transmission lines were paralyzed.

Fortunately, China is more prepared.

When the particle storm arrived, 80% of the substation equipment had been disconnected from the network, and the most important ultra-high voltage transmission lines were stopped. In order to protect important strategic infrastructure, all nuclear power plants were stopped, and most thermal power plants and hydropower plants were shut down. In megacities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, power limit controls were also implemented, and some enterprises that were very susceptible to particle storms were temporarily shut down.

Through these measures, China has minimized its losses.

That night, major cities restored their electricity supply.

However, the particle storm did not end there.

According to some Western astronomers' predictions, the impact of particle storms will last at least one week, and human production and life will be seriously affected.

It can be said that day is no longer suitable for humans.

According to an analysis conducted by a European medical research institution, at noon, if you directly suffer from lush sun, it will only take half an hour to cause serious burns. Moreover, if you are active outside for one week during the day, the probability of skin cancer will increase by more than 20%.

Obviously, this is too underestimating the particle storm.

The analysis report obtained by Mu Haoyang is: this storm will last at least one month, and the intensity of the radiation shè is 1,500 times that of normal.

Within this month, industrial production will definitely be affected.

Even if the atmosphere is protected, most particles cannot reach the ground, and strong radiation can still cause skin cancer to occur for a long time in the scorching sun. More importantly, ordinary sunscreen supplies are useless at all, because these daily necessities can only deal with ultraviolet rays and other radiations, and have no effect on particle radiations. Only astronauts' space suits can truly achieve radiation protection effects.

This report has not had a great impact on the military, but mainly affects the work and life of ordinary people.

On the afternoon of July 15, the State Council announced the "Regulations on Response to Emergency Affairs", ordering that all enterprises and administrative units should take vacations during the day and change to work at night. If the work required for 1 day is to be controlled within four hours at night.

There is no doubt that this will greatly reduce industrial production efficiency.

However, compared with the possible losses, especially the social costs that need to be paid, this is nothing.

If the previous working and rest system is still adopted, at least one-third of Chinese people will suffer from skin cancer, and more than half of them will die within two years. By adjusting the working and rest system, this number can be reduced by at least ten times. If other effective measures are assisted, it can be further reduced.

For example, the radiation-proofing products and radiation-proofing items are distributed to the public for free.

Three days later, the State Council took similar actions to distribute objects to all those who need to work in the lu day.

This move alone reduced the incidence of skin cancer by 99%.

Two years after the particle storm, the incidence of skin cancer in China was only 10,400, the lowest in the world, only one-third of that in New Zealand. Although this is dozens of times the past, it is not worth mentioning compared to other countries. For example, the incidence of skin cancer in the United States is as high as 26:3, the incidence of skin cancer in the European Union is as high as 24:6, Russia is as high as 17:8, and even Australia in the southern hemisphere is as high as 5:7.

In fact, the worst is definitely not developed countries, but many developing and underdeveloped countries, especially those located between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer. Within two years, 1700 million people in India died of skin cancer or were diagnosed with skin cancer. After receiving full assistance from China, more than 10 million people still suffered from skin cancer, and the situation in Myanmar is even worse.

However, compared with African countries, this is nothing.

According to a survey conducted by the United Nations, only two years after the particle storm broke out, at least 1.4 billion people in Africa died of skin cancer or had reached its late stages. Within the next six years, about one billion people died of skin cancer. Because most of the dead were young and middle-aged people who needed to work under the scorching sun, the fertility rate in Africa dropped to the lowest point in a century within twenty years. In addition, the large-scale labor shortage caused a decades-long war. As for how many people died of war, it is impossible to count, but it will definitely not be missing.

For example, ten years later, the population of the four poorest countries in Africa has decreased by nearly 7.5 million.

Conservatively estimated that this particle storm claimed at least three billion lives in Africa, causing the total population of Africa to suddenly decrease from the previous 4.8 billion to 1.8 billion.

Of course, this is the later impact.

When the particle storm broke out, no one died directly from the radius except for eight astronauts, and the indirect deaths in countries around the world would not exceed 10,000. In fact, in the short term, the more backward the region, the less affected it will be, because the degree of power application in backward areas is much lower.

It must be admitted that China has made the most preparations.

For example, China is the first country in the world to start building underground power transmission lines, and as early as the beginning of the year, it transferred several of the most important bomb factories to the ground. Therefore, during the particle storm, China's arms production, especially the largest bomb, was reduced by only about 20%.

In addition, China is the first country to restore power supply.

Even if a factory that has not been transferred cannot operate during the day, it can still work normally at night.

Of course, China's preparations are still insufficient, such as not producing enough special radiation protection suits, which greatly affected social activities during the day. At that time, special radiation protection suits could only be provided for workers responsible for emergency repair of power equipment, and others had to stay at home as much as possible. It is best to hide in underground air defense facilities and urban underground facilities, because soil with a thickness of fifteen meters or five meters of concrete can weaken the particle radiation intensity by 99.9%, minimizing the impact of personnel to the maximum extent.

Relatively speaking, China has the most sufficient military preparations.

In order to deal with particle storms, at the beginning of the year, strong electromagnetic shielding equipment was provided to the major troops and the protection of major military facilities was strengthened. For example, the hangars, bullet warehouses, fuel warehouses, command centers, dormitories and other important facilities in major air force bases were coated with radiation-proof coatings.

For the naval fleet, the most important protection method is strong electromagnetic shielding.

Particle radius is mainly high-speed charged particles. Strong electromagnetic shielding can isolate almost all charged particles, but it is not able to deal with the medium-sized particles. Fortunately, the warships are made of metal, and steel plates with a thickness of about ten centimeters can isolate most of the medium-sized particles.

Even so, the fleet's combat operations during the day were still seriously affected.

The most affected are the carrier-based aviation forces. Under strong radius, fighter jets must not take off and must stay on the aircraft carrier in a proper manner.

It can be said that the only submarines that were really not affected were deep submarines under the sea.

Sea water is a good conductor and a natural electromagnetic barrier. Thirty meters below the sea surface, the particles are slim, and there is also a thick layer of high-strength pressure-resistant shell on the submarine. In the words of Zhou Yusheng, even if all warships are paralyzed, the submarine can still move freely.
Chapter completed!