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A hydrogen bomb is more devastating than an atomic device

By Sabir Shah
January 07, 2016

The New York Times writes with disbelief: “Device has a yield of six kilotons, making it far smaller than the blast that a hydrogen bomb would produce; only a few countries, including the United States and Russia, have conducted hydrogen bomb tests and the size of the detonations reached 20 to 50 megatons”

LAHORE: Having already tested three atomic devices in October 2006, May 2009 and February 2013, North Korea has now irked the whole world by claiming that it has successfully conducted the test of a Hydrogen bomb at a time when approximately 1,800 of the 15,850 nuclear weapons possessed by United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea are in a state of high operational alert and are hence "ready-to-fire."

In its latest 2015 report, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SPRI) has viewed: "At the start of 2015, nine states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea)—possessed approximately 15,850 nuclear weapons, of which 4,300 were deployed with operational forces. Roughly 1,800 of these weapons are kept in a state of high operational alert."

While the United States has an inventory of 7,260 nuclear warheads (number of deployed warheads rests at 2,080), Russia has 7,500 (number of deployed warheads is 1,780), the United Kingdom possesses 215 (number of deployed warheads stands at 150), France has 300 in its arsenal (number of deployed warheads is 290), China has a total inventory of 260, India has between 90 and 110, Pakistan has between 100 and 120, Israel possesses 80 and North Korea has between six and eight at its disposal.

The April 21, 1953 edition of "Look" magazine had maintained: "A Hydrogen bomb would . . . totally destroy everything within 10 miles."

Contrary to the atomic bombs that had devastated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Hydrogen bombs have never been used in any war and what makes them more dangerous than an atom bomb is the widely-acknowledged fact that they are deemed to be small and light enough to fit on a missile. The US Geological Survey had detected unusual seismic activity in the north-east of North Korea, while tremors were also picked up by seismologists in the South Korea and China at 10am local time on January 6.

According to the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), North Korea's move is a breach of the universally accepted norm against nuclear testing; a norm that has been respected by 183 countries since 1996.

The CTBTO statement from Vienna reads: "Our monitoring stations picked up an unusual seismic event in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) today (January 6). The location is very similar to the event our system registered on 12 February 2013. Our initial location estimate shows that the event took place in the area of the DPRK’s nuclear test site. The DPRK also claimed today that it has conducted yet another nuclear test, the fourth since 2006."

A top British daily "The Guardian" has quoted John Carlson, the former head of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office, as saying: "If it’s true, it means they’ve made something smaller scale, capable of being put on to a missile. There have been questions over whether those past tests were practical weapons at all, if they could even be dropped from aircraft. Ideally it would be even smaller, maybe 750mm and half a tonne, but that would probably be beyond their capabilities."

Another esteemed British daily "the Telegraph" has added: "South Korea's military has played down claims that the North's underground test was a hydrogen bomb, supporting the theory that it was an enhanced fission device rather than a thermonuclear device. A spokesman for the military in Seoul told Yonhap News that early indications are that the device had a yield of 6 kilotons, making it far smaller than the blast that a hydrogen bomb would produce."

"The Telegraph" has gone on to write that only a few countries, including the United States and Russia, have conducted hydrogen bomb tests and the size of the detonations reached 20 to 50 megatons.

Research conducted by the "Jang Group and Geo Television Network" also reveals that while the United States had conducted the first-ever teat of a Hydrogen bomb in 1952, the first ready-to-use thermonuclear bomb was tested on August 12, 1953 in the Soviet Union, just four years after the country had fired its first nukes in 1949.

Between 1949 and 1989, Russia had exploded 456 atomic and thermonuclear devices around Kazakhstan. More than 300 test explosions were conducted underground after 1961. Between October 1961 and October 1989, 224 tests were conducted by Russia.

The last test took place on February 12, 1989 and had resulted in a leakage of large amounts of the radioactive noble gases Xenon and Krypton.