Nostradamus predicted the year of conflict between India and Pakistan in 2025—did he warn of a nuclear disaster

The potential for a war between India and Pakistan, especially after events such as the Pahalgam terror attack of April 22, 2025, has raised serious concern about the threat of nuclear escalation. To this effect, a 2019 report forebodingly predicted the timing of the war, forecasting 2025 as the year when a potential war could erupt. This delves profoundly into the calamitous consequences of a nuclear war between these two nations, underscoring the global impact a disaster of such magnitude would possess.
Nuclear catastrophe between India and Pakistan: Experts warn in groundbreaking study
The primary research was done by researchers from the University of Colorado, with the help of Rutgers University, and published in Science Advances. The study collected data and feedback from a diverse set of organizations and experts such as US National Center for Atmospheric Research, Federation of American Scientists, Natural Resources Defense Council, as well as institutions like the University of Texas at Rio Grande and the University of California at Los Angeles.
The final aim of the 2019 study was to sound an alarm about the
nuclear war potential
catastrophe between India and Pakistan. It stressed the need for international conventions that work against such wars, specifically pointing out the 2017 UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The forecasts of the study were to get everyone to realise how horrible the aftermath of an atomic war would be for not just the South Asian region but the world at large.
According to the simulations in the research, Indian and Pakistani nuclear attacks could result in 100 million immediate fatalities. Additionally, another 50 to 125 million could perish from the aftermath, including radiation, injuries, and environmental damage. The research detailed one example of India deploying 100 nuclear strategic weapons and Pakistan deploying 150 and showed how massive the loss of life would be.
How nuclear conflict could trigger a global famine crisis
In addition to the direct destruction, the study predicted that a nuclear conflict would initiate a global mass starvation phenomenon. This would occur because the nuclear explosions would initiate fires which would release huge quantities of soot and black carbon into the atmosphere. The smoke would obscure sunlight, reducing global temperatures as much as 5 degrees Celsius, destroying agriculture worldwide. A decrease in world precipitation by as much as 30% would further intensify food deficits, resulting in mass famine.
One of the authors of the report from Rutgers University's Department of Environmental Sciences, Alan Robock, pointed out that the destruction would not be limited to the targeted cities but would be universal. "A war like that would threaten not just the areas where bombs would be dropped but the whole world," Robock said.
India and Pakistan's nuclear inventory growth and its global impact
The study also made an estimate of the probable size of India's and Pakistan's nuclear weapons inventories by 2025. It predicted that India's maximum inventory size would be 400 to 500 nuclear weapons by then, with explosive yields equivalent to Hiroshima bombs of World War II, whose weights range between 15 kilotons (15,000 tonnes TNT). The Pakistani stockpile would also see enormous growth, further increasing the risks of a nuclear war in the subcontinent.
Maybe the most eye-opening aspect of the study was that it investigated the environmental impact of a nuclear war. The authors calculated that the nuclear explosions would ignite fires that would release between 16 million and 36 million tonnes of soot into the atmosphere. This black carbon would cover the sun and disrupt the Earth's climate system, leading to an effect of nuclear winter. The study warned that plant growth may reduce by up to 30% and ocean productivity by up to 15%. The climatic conditions would persist for a minimum of 10 years because the soot would remain suspended in the atmosphere for a very long period, making it hard to recover.
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