India - Pak nuclear war would starve a billion: study

A day before Pakistan tested a ballistic missile to match India, a study released on Tuesday warned that more than a billion people – not only in the region but around the world – would face death from starvation if India and Pakistan unleash nuclear weapons on each other.

The weapons would cause major worldwide climate disruption that would dramatically drive down food production in China, the United States and other countries, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War warned in a statement.

"The grim prospect of nuclear famine requires a fundamental change in our thinking about nuclear weapons," said Dr Ira Helfand, the lead author of the study.

"The new evidence shows that even the relatively small nuclear arsenals of countries such as India and Pakistan could cause long-lasting damage to the earth's ecosystems and threaten hundreds of millions of already malnourished people. This demands that action be taken," Helfand said in the statement.

"The needless and preventable deaths of one billion people over a decade would be a disaster unprecedented in human history. It would not cause the extinction of the human race, but it would bring an end to modern civilization as we know it."

The study, titled Nuclear famine: a billion people at risk - global impacts of limited nuclear war on agriculture, food supplies, and human nutrition was released at the World Summit of Nobel Laureates in Chicago. It is to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Climate Change.