Joe Biden’s administration is developing a nuclear bomb that could be 24 times more powerful than the atomic bomb used to decimate Hiroshima in 1945.
The bomb is so powerful it could kill more than 300,000 people if dropped on Moscow, analysis has suggested.
reports: “Anything within roughly a half-mile radius from the bomb’s detonation site would be vaporized by a fireball, while heavy damage would demolish buildings and likely kill everyone else within a mile.”
Journalists created a visual representation with Nukemap, an online tool developed by science historian Alex Wellerstein to gauge how much damage nuclear weapons could cause.
The US’ bomb is known as the B61-131, and has a maximum yield of up to 340 kilotons of TNT.
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima only had a blast yield of 15 kilotons.
The Department of Defense announced the bomb last week, saying it is a version of the B61 gravity bomb developed in the 1960s when the Cold War was at its peak.
In a statement, it said: “The B61-13 would be deliverable by modern aircraft, strengthening deterrence of adversaries and assurance of allies and partners by providing the President with additional options against certain harder and large-area military targets.
“It would replace some of the B61-7s in the current nuclear stockpile and have a yield similar to the B61-7, which is higher than that of the B61-12.”
While China and the US are developing nuclear weapons, earlier this week, they reportedly agreed to nuclear arms control talks.
Reports say the talks would be led by Mallory Stewart, a senior State Department official, and Sun Xiaobo, the head of the arms control department at China’s foreign ministry.
On Monday, China said that Beijing and Washington would hold “consultations on arms control and non-proliferation” in the coming days.
This comes after China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi. visited Washington.
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