China Carries Out Another Atomic Test
China conducted a nuclear weapons test Thursday, the second this year after a break of nearly two years, Swedish monitors reported.
“This was an unusually strong explosion by Chinese standards,” said Mats Gustavsson, an official at Sweden’s Defense Research Establishment.
The agency’s Hagfors Observatory picked up signals indicating a yield of 50 to 200 kilotons. The observatory said in a statement that the underground bomb was detonated at the Lop Nor site in Xinjiang province.
China’s last previous test was May 26 and its yield was estimated at less than 40 kilotons. That explosion was the first since Sept. 29, 1988, when a bomb of less than 10 kilotons was tested.
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