TEST FELT 85 MILES AWAY

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31375, 22 May 1967, Page 11

TEST FELT 85 MILES AWAY

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) NEVADA TEST SITE, May 20. The United States exploded one of its most powerful thermonuclear devices in an underground shaft, swaying high buildings and rippling swimming pools 85 miles away in Las Vegas, United Press International reported.

The Atomic Energy Commission said the nuclear test, designated Commodore, was in the intermediate yield range, and had a force from 200 kilotons to one megaton—-

the equivalent of from 200,000 to one million tons of T.N.T. A seismologist, Dr. John C. Hollinger, of the Colorado School of Mines, near Denver, said it was the second largest blast ever recorded from an underground nuclear explosion at the Nevada test site.

The Rev. Joseph Downey, a seismologist at Regis College in Denver, estimated the shock of the detonation between 5 and 6 on the Richter scale, indicating it could be potentially destructive in a densely-populated area. Father Downey said the explosion, which generated shock waves lasting about 30 minutes, “recorded here very strongly.” “It would be considered a good-sized ’quake.” A Las Vegas housewife Mid that shortly after the 9 a-m. blast “my swimming pool had whitecaps on it” . A deputy sheriff Mid the floor of the Clark County Courthouse in downtown Las Vegas was “going up and down” with the tremors.

Abortion Supported.—The American Baptist convention urged yesterday that abortion be legalised. United Press In/ ternational reported.—Pit* burgh. May 21. - -