France Sets Off Another Nuclear Bomb in S. Pacific : Military: Second test is apparently larger than the first. Washington and governments in region condemn the action.

Ignoring international protests, France on Sunday detonated its second nuclear bomb in a month in the South Pacific.

The second bomb was apparently about five times larger than the first.

The French Defense Ministry said the underground test on Fangataufa Atoll measured “less than 110 kilotons.” By comparison, France’s first test on nearby Mururoa Atoll on Sept. 5 was 20 kilotons, slightly larger than the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

New Zealand seismologists estimated the blast produced a shock wave equal to a 5.9-magnitude earthquake.

The first test drew worldwide protest and prompted 1 1/2 days of rioting in Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia and the staging area for both the nuclear tests and protesters.

Truckloads of riot police began cruising the capital shortly after Sunday’s blast was announced. But the streets were quiet, with many shops and restaurants closed for the Sabbath.

In the last week, France has tripled its contingent of riot police in the city, with about 720 officers now on hand, many flown in from Paris.

The blast brought swift condemnation from the United States and from within the region.

In Washington, White Press Press Secretary Mike McCurry expressed regret at the new test.

“We continue to urge all of the nuclear power states, including France, to refrain from further nuclear tests and to join in a global moratorium,” he said.

The head of the 16-nation South Pacific Forum, Ieremia Tabai in Suva, Fiji, said the test will further damage France’s relations with island states in the region.

New Zealand and Australia said they will call in the French ambassadors to express outrage.

The environmental group Greenpeace, which has led a flotilla of ships seeking to disrupt the tests, called the second test “an enormous affront” to the people of the South Pacific.

President Jacques Chirac announced this summer that France would conduct up to eight tests through May. The tests ended a three-year moratorium that all the declared nuclear powers except China had honored.

Chirac argues the tests are needed to modernize France’s nuclear arsenal and develop computer test simulations, but critics say the blasts could encourage others to resume testing.

Protesters from Greenpeace have spent much of the past month in boats trying to enter the 12-mile exclusion zone around the two atolls, Mururoa and Fangataufa, which are about 750 miles from Papeete.

Earlier Sunday, French marines seized a Greenpeace sailboat with eight to 10 people aboard outside the exclusion zone--the group’s last ship in the region.

This was France’s 206th nuclear test since 1960.

New Zealand’s Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences said the largest blast by France in the South Pacific was 150 kilotons in 1985 at neighboring Mururoa Atoll.