Nuclear tests: databases and other material--Johnston's Archive
RDS-37 nuclear test, 1955
compiled by Wm. Robert Johnston
last modified 6 November 2006
Date:
22 November 1955
Location:
Matochkin Shar, Novaya Zemlya, Russia, USSR
Type of event:
accidental radioactive release from underground nuclear test
Description:
On 22 November 1955 the USSR conducted its first test of a multi-stage thermonuclear device. The device, the RDS-37, was designed as a nuclear gravity bomb with a full yield of about 3 megatons. The test version was modified to reduce the yield to an expected 1.45 megatons, to reduce the risk to the local population. It was airdropped from a Tupolev-95 bomber over Technical Area Sh ("Ground Zero") at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan. It detonated with a yield of 1.6 megatons at altitude of 1,550 meters. Civilians in nearby villages had been warned as a precaution, but one child who ran back into a house immediately after the detonation was killed when the blast wave arrived and caused the roof to collapse. A trench collapsed onto soldiers observing the detonation, killing one. Six additional injuries occurred.
Consequences:
2 fatalities, 6 injuries.
References:
- Adushkin, Vitaly V., and William Leith, Sept. 2001, "The containment of Soviet underground nuclear explosions," USGS Open File Report 01-312, on line, USGS [http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/pdf/USGSOFR01312.pdf].
- Cochran, Thomas B., William M. Arkin, Robert S. Norris, and Jeffrey I. Sands, Nuclear Weapons Databook Vol. IV: Soviet Nuclear Weapons, Harper and Row (New York, NY).
- Goncharov, G. A., 1996, "American and Soviet H-bomb development programmes: historical background," Physics--Uspekhi, 39:1033-1044.
- IAEA, Dec. 2004, "Nuclear explosions in the USSR: The North Test Site reference material, version 4," IAEA Dept. of Nuclear Safety and Security, on line [http://www-ns.iaea.org/downloads/rw/waste-safety/north-test-site-final.pdf]
- Podvig, Pavel, ed., 2001, Russian Strategic Forces, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA).
- RFNC-VNIIEF, 1996, USSR Nuclear Weapons Tests and Peaceful Nuclear Explosions 1949 through 1990, RFNC-VNIIEF (Sarov, Russia), on line at Analytic Center for Non-Proliferation Problems [http://npc.sarov.ru/english/issues/peaceful/peaceful_e.pdf].
- Sakharov, Andrei, 1990, Memoirs, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY).
- Yang, Xiaoping, Robert North, and Carl Romney, Aug. 2000, "CMR Nuclear Explosion Database (Revision 3)," on line, SMDC Monitoring Research [http://www.rdss.info/database/nucex/report/explosion.pdf].
© 2006 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 6 November 2006.
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