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To date, a hydrogen bomb has never been used in battle by any country, but experts say it has the power to wipe out entire cities and kill significantly more people than the already powerful atomic bomb, which the US dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.

A hydrogen bomb has the potential to be 1 000 times more deadly than an atomic bomb.

Russia, the UK, the US, France, and China all have H-bombs tucked away for a rainy day, and all of them and have conducted hydrogen weapon tests in the past.

There’s a thought to take to bed with you tonight.

Russia, however, has a claim to fame that none of the other nuclear states can compete with – and hopefully never will.

On October 30, 1961, says VICE, the Soviet Union detonated the largest hydrogen bomb in history.

The RDS-220, also known as the Tsar Bomba, exploded with the force of more than 50 million sticks of dynamite, making it the largest man-made explosion in the world.

Until now, the footage captured to record the explosion has been classified, with the exception of a few short clips and grainy photographs.

Then, on August 20, Russia’s Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, the portion of the Kremlin that deals with all things nuclear, declassified 40 minutes of unseen footage of the Tsar Bomba test, which you can watch below.

You’ll find the explosion at the 22:30 mark just after an ominously ticking clock counting down to the explosion.

Click the ‘CC’ in the bottom right-hand corner for subtitles.

The footage was released to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Russia’s nuclear industry.

Congrats?

At 26 feet long and almost 7 feet tall, Tsar Bomba was so large that a specially designed Tu-95V Soviet bomber had some of its fuel tanks and bomb bay doors removed to accommodate it.

The bomber dropped Tsar Bomba off the coast of Severny Island near the Arctic Ocean. It exploded 4,000 meters above the ground.

The shock wave emanating from the blast caught the Tu-95V even though it was 120km away. You can see footage of the inside of the Tu-95V just after the bomb goes off, turning everything white.

The plane dropped, but the pilot managed to recover and landed safely. The mushroom cloud rose into the air to a height seven times higher than Mount Everest, and could be seen from close to 1 000km away.

New START, an Obama-era treaty between Russia and the US which limits the number of nuclear weapons between the two countries, will expire soon, and probably won’t be renewed.

In the meantime, America has been working on small-scale tactical nuclear weapons on its nuclear subs, while Russia gets to work on a new range of nuclear weapons.

Sounds like the makings of a second Cold War, ticking away.

[source:vice]