Declassified footage of most powerful nuclear bomb ever detonated was top secret for decades

Have you ever seen what the most powerful nuclear bomb would do to a country?

Of course not, otherwise you’d be dead.

But we have the footage to show you exactly what went down when this bomb, that was kept top secret for decades, was finally released by Russia in 2020.

It's absolutely terrifying.

Check it out here:

The full 40-minute video was previously classified, but was released in August 2020 by ROSATOM, the country's state-run nuclear division.

The huge bomb was detonated on 30 October 1961 off the coast of Severny Island near the Arctic Ocean and was called the Tsar Bomba, or Tsar Bomb due to the sheer size of it.

It's a hydrogen bomb with 50 megatons - or 50 million tons - of explosive.

To put that into perspective, it was 3,333 times more powerful than the bomb that killed 140,000 when it was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

Now, that’s crazy.

It was also far more destructive than the largest hydrogen bomb the United States had ever set off back in 1954, which detonated a 15-megaton device.

Did you see how big it was? Jesus.

The crazy footage was released on 20 August 2020 to coincide with the 75th anniversary of Russia's nuclear industry, with a large portion of the video depicting the country's journey to the top of the nuclear tree.

The weapon can be seen as a massive thing, weighing a giant 27 tonnes and about eight metres in length.

Even the bomber was knocked back by the blast. ROSATOM

However, in order for it to be dropped, some of the fuel tanks had to be removed from the Tu-95V Soviet bomber.

In the end, the explosion was so powerful the bomber was hit by the shockwave about 70 miles away and it was detonated at around 4,000 metres above ground.

The explosion hit the bomber by the shockwave about 70 miles away, with the blast itself visible from an incredible 620 miles.

Not even the mushroom cloud could do that and the blast stretched 42 miles into the air, making it about seven times higher than Mount Everest, and reports claim it destroyed buildings within 55km (35 miles) of it.

But shockingly, that wasn’t all it had the capacity to do.

It was also later found that the Tsar Bomb could have been even more powerful than it was, as it was originally designed to deliver a colossal 100-megaton blast, but was scaled down in order to protect the wider population from the explosion.

The Tsar Bomb was one of the last above ground nuclear tests ever carried out as the US, UK, and the Soviet Union signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which stated that all future tests had to be carried out beneath ground.

Topics: Russia, Technology, World News

Britt Jones