In general, if a bomb is powerful enough to result in a major radiation release from a nuclear power plant, then it would probably do more damage if used on a major population center. There are measures you can take to prevent people from getting too irradiated by a dirty bomb, from evacuation to simply staying indoors and wearing a face mask to reduce particulate inhalation. Straightforward explosions, in contrast, do not offer quite as many second chances.
(BTW, on the subject of surviving a nuclear blast: duck and cover. It works. There were some crazy-badass scientific investigations into the effects of nuclear weapons, back in the days when we would actually set off a nuclear bomb in the desert somewhere to get experimental data, and the results were clear: in a fairly large range of radii around a nuclear bomb, you can increase your chance of survival a lot if you can just get a wall between yourself and the flash, and a table or something over you to protect you from falling debris. At the time they were also very concerned about buildings collapsing, but they discovered that some simple changes to typical construction methods could make buildings much more durable, and those have been mandatory in most places ever since.)
In general, if a bomb is powerful enough to result in a major radiation release from a nuclear power plant, then it would probably do more damage if used on a major population center. There are measures you can take to prevent people from getting too irradiated by a dirty bomb, from evacuation to simply staying indoors and wearing a face mask to reduce particulate inhalation. Straightforward explosions, in contrast, do not offer quite as many second chances.
(BTW, on the subject of surviving a nuclear blast: duck and cover. It works. There were some crazy-badass scientific investigations into the effects of nuclear weapons, back in the days when we would actually set off a nuclear bomb in the desert somewhere to get experimental data, and the results were clear: in a fairly large range of radii around a nuclear bomb, you can increase your chance of survival a lot if you can just get a wall between yourself and the flash, and a table or something over you to protect you from falling debris. At the time they were also very concerned about buildings collapsing, but they discovered that some simple changes to typical construction methods could make buildings much more durable, and those have been mandatory in most places ever since.)
good to know:)