STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- The Soviet Union today set off the biggest man-made explosion in history, a blast that may have topped the power of the 50-megaton bomb forecast by Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
Instruments throughout Western Europe recorded the latest Soviet nuclear blast that may have approached a power equal to that of 100 million tons of TNT. The blast was recorded at 9:33.3 a.m. (3:33.3 a.m. EST).
Several hours after the blast was recorded in Europe the Atomic Energy Commission in Wash ington confirmed it and said a statement would be made later.
The Soviet bomb was set off in the atmosphere above the Arctic testing ground on Novaya Zemlya Island in defiance of worldwide protests and pleas from the White House and the United Nations.
The British government was the first to register a protest. Within hours of the blast the Foreign Office in London said the British government "deplored" the explosion by the Soviets of their latest thermonuclear bomb.
In Oslo, Norwegian Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen expressed bitter disappointment over the Soviet test.
The bomb exploded today was the one announced to the 22nd Soviet Communist Party Congress in Moscow by Khrushchev on Oct. 17. At the time, he said Russia would test a 50-megaton bomb, (a megaton equals one million tons of TNT) as well as the firing mechanism for a 100-megaton bomb by the end of the month. But he said then that he hoped no bomb of the larger size ever would have to be exploded. Russia itself, he said, would feel the effects of such a bomb.
Today's explosion was at least the 26th known Soviet bomb set off in the current test series. All but one underwater have been in the atmosphere, with resultant grave radioactive fallout dangers for the world. The United States set off its fourth fallout-free underground explosion Sunday since it resumed in the wake of the| Soviet move earlier this month.
First report of today's tremendous explosion came from the Stockholm Technical Institute Laboratory. That school's Prof. Arne Bjernhammar estimated its force at "considerably over" 50j megatons and roughly three times greater than that of the estimated 30-megaton bomb exploded by the Soviets at Novaya Zemlya last Monday.
Other European laboratories agreed the blast was of at least 50-megaton force.
Swedish nuclear scientists said they believed today's device had a weight of about 15 tons, and probably was 16.25 feet high and 9.75 feet in diameter.
They said they believed the bomb was rather "dirty."
It was believed that this latest Soviet explosion sent about 66 pounds of strontium 90 and about 3,300 pounds of other radioactive by-products circling the earth with westerly winds.
The Stockholm Meteorological Institution reported that Arctic winds are blowing to the West over the Kara Sea and probably- would carry any radioactive dust towards Siberia. The test area of Novaya Zemlya is a frozen wasteland of glaciers, polar bears and sparse population in the Arctic Ocean between the Kara and Barents Seas.
Bjoern Malmgren, head of advanced developments for Sweden's Standard Motor Company, said the latest Soviet bomb released a force equal to all the electricity Sweden produces in two years.
Although today's blast was the biggest and dirtiest ever set off by man, the bomb was of questionable value to the Soviet Union, save as a propaganda weapon.
Western military experts have said that the military value of such a super-bomb is "limited", since the same end of eliminating a target could be obtained through use of a smaller and more efficient bomb. Some experts here said that, at any rate, the Soviet Union is not expected to have rockets big enough to lift such bombs before next year.
