Escalating his evil

THE HYDROGEN bomb allegedly tested by North Korea Sunday would be far more powerful than either of the atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan at the end of World War II, experts said.

The hydrogen bomb uses a two-stage process, with a fission explosion that triggers a series of apocalyptic nuclear reactions in a fusion blast.

Just the shock wave from such a blast would flatten anything within a 2-mile radius, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Radiation from the explosion is then absorbed by the atmosphere and spread far and wide.

There hasn’t been a reported use of an Hbomb in warfare.

However, the U.S. conducted the world’s first H-bomb test on Eniwetok, an island in the Pacific, in 1952. The Soviet Union carried out its own experiment the next year.

Seven countries had already constructed hydrogen bombs by the late 1970s.

Elizabeth Elizalde