Saturday8217;s nuke test a small event 8212; Experts

BANGALORE/NEW YORK, May 31: The nuclear test conducted by Pakistan yesterday was between two kilotons and four kilotons equivalent of TNT, a...

BANGALORE/NEW YORK, May 31: The nuclear test conducted by Pakistan yesterday was between two kilotons and four kilotons equivalent of TNT, according to the High Pressure Physics division of the Seismic Array Station of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre BARC at Gauribidanur near here.

The station8217;s scientific officer, Ranganath N Bharthur, said here today that the calculated yield of the May 28 nuclear tests carried out by the neighbouring country, as per the recorded signal was 8220;between five kilotons and 10 kilotons of TNT equivalent8221;.

He said the station had recorded the underground nuclear explosions conducted on May 28 and May 30. On May 28, it was recorded at 15:50:40 IST and yesterday, at 12:29:24 IST. Bharthur said the location of the May 28 tests was 28.9 north latitude and 64.7 east longitude and it was 28.6 north latitude and 65.2 east longitude yesterday.

Meanwhile, American experts have said that the nuclear bomb Pakistan tested yesterday was a small device with a yield betweenone and five kilotons. It was apparently aimed at developing a warhead for its Ghauri missile, they say. Reports also say that Islamabad is preparing to test fire a missile, perhaps Ghauri, which is said to have range of about 1,500 km.

Saturday8217;s nuclear device was relatively small compared to cold war standards, when the power was measured in millions of tons. But still it would be deadly enough to kill thousands of people if detonated in the heart of a big city, analysts say.

Quoting American experts, The New York Times reported that the global network that tracks earthquakes and underground atomic blasts found only a faint echo from the nuclear test that Pakistan said it conducted on Saturday. 8220;It is a small event,8221; a seismologist said.

Analysts and experts are also casting doubts on the Pakistani claim that it successfully exploded five nuclear devices on Thursday, with one of them saying that all may not have in fact exploded then. This might have necessitated Saturday8217;s test, theyfeel.

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According to experts, the preliminary seismic data analysis showed that Thursday8217;s explosion had a magnitude of 4.8 on the Richter scale, which translates into a yield of around 8,000 tons. By contrast, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 had an explosive force equivalent to 15,000 tons.