ATOMIC TEST EXPLOSION
ATOMIC TEST SITE (Nevada), August 31. A powerful atomic blast vaporised a 700 ft tower in a gigantic purple-rimmed fireball today while a force of United States infantry watched. A wall of dust and an earthshaking shock wave hit about 900 foot-soldi£rs as they waited to take part in the most elaborate test of the Atomic Energy Commission’s 1957 test series. The explosion was the fifteenth at the Yucca- Flat site this year and the flash from the explosiofi was visible over a. large area of the western United States. Atomic scientists said that today’s shot was more powerful than the one which shattered H oshima in 1945. It was) rated as being equal to more than 20,000 tons of T.N.T.
Troops, originally to be in trenches only 4500 yards from the tower, were pulled back in the early morning hours, because of fallout dangers, to 11,500 yards away.
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Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28371, 2 September 1957, Page 11
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152ATOMIC TEST EXPLOSION Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28371, 2 September 1957, Page 11
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