Atomic weapons more powerful 75 years after Hiroshima: Official

The explosive yield - the amount of energy released when a nuclear weapon detonates - has grown exponentially since 1945 when bombs flattened the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Densely-populated megacities of the 21st century mean a nuclear attack could wreak even more horrific damage than inflicted on Japan, as signs point to the development of more sophisticated weaponry.

The first atomic bomb dropped 75 years ago leveled Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and killed an estimated 70,000 people instantly with many more dying in the following years from the effects of radiation.

Three days later, the U.S. dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, ending World War II, with threats posed by war weaponry forever changing the world.

"They have increased exponentially since 1945," Shannon Kile, program director on the Nuclear Disarmament, Arms Control, and Non-proliferation program of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), said in an
online interview with Anadolu Agency.

"In the current U.S. nuclear arsenal, for example, the W88 warheads deployed on Trident II submarine-launched missiles have an estimated yield of 475 kilotons, compared to the estimated 12-13 kiloton yield of the 'Little Boy' bomb dropped on Hiroshima."

"The horror of a nuclear detonation may feel like distant history. Treaties to reduce nuclear arsenals and risks of proliferation are being abandoned, new types of nuclear weapons are being produced, and serious threats are being made," said Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

"We must push all states to ban nuclear weapons and push nuclear weapons states to negotiate, in good faith, steps towards their elimination."

When the bombs...