On the morning of December 13, 2001, a group of five armed Terrorists allegedly backed by the pakistani ISI attacked the Indian Parliament. India in Response begun to stage a Massive Build up of troops along the Punjab and kashmir side of the Pakistans border, pakistan in-turn Mobilized 300,000 of its own troops along the Border in Response to Indian deployment of 700,000 trooops. The strategic forces of both nations armed with nuclear tipped Ballistic missiles were placed on Hair-trigger Alert, but thankfully the tense situation defused by June 10th 2002 due to intervention by US and Russia to restore Calm. Alas the ending of story could have been much different and would have involved Mushroom clouds. On June 6, 2002 an object with an estimated diameter of 10 meters collided with Earth. The collision occurred over the Mediterranean Sea, between Greece and Libya, at approximately 34°N 21°E and the object exploded in mid-air. The energy released was estimated (from infrasound measurements) to be equivalent to 26 kilotons of TNT comparable to that of the yield of “Little Boy” used to nuke Hiroshima,Had the timing of the Impact of the Asteriod was slightly different it could have exploded over the skies of India or Pakistan and it would have been Interpreted by the armed forces of any of the countries as a enemy nuclear strike as both countries lacked sensors to differentiate between a Near Earth Object Impact and a Nuclear detonation. It could have triggered a full scale Nuclear Exchange between both the countries each armed with a Stockpile of more than 100 nuclear warheads. This could have resulted according to a 2009 study: 20 million deaths in the subcontinent from direct bomb blasts and the subsequent radiations and 1 billion world wide deaths from the Starvation caused by the agricultural collapse resulting from a mini “Nuclar winter” caused by the blocking of Sunlight from the earth atmosphere from the soot and dust deposited for weeks in Stratosphere from the burning cities.
The Situation Room 