People of course would be picked up and hurled away from the blast along with the rest of the debris. As far away as 10 miles from ground zero, pieces of glass and other sharp objects would be hurled about by the blast at lethal velocities. At a distance of 2 miles or so from ground zero, winds would reach 400 miles per hour. The principal victims of EMP are the solid state circuits that form the groundwork of our modern world. In 1962 the United States set off a 1.4 megaton hydrogen bomb 248 miles above Johnston Island.
Electrons scattered by gamma rays accelerate and deflect off the earth's magnetic field.
Any metal object antenna, cable, pipeline, fence, powerline can act as a pulse collector, gathering energy from the transitory charge. EMP travels through the collector to damage the machinery. Electromagnetic pulse is short lived, having a duration 100 times shorter than that of a lightning bolt and does not carry a large amount of energy. It may also affect electronic controls in nuclear power plants and initiate meltdowns in every nuclear reactor in the country. The Department of Defense is now buying fiberoptic cables to replace the old ones for its ground-based communications network.