The largest nuclear explosion in history occurred in 1961, but it wasn’t until nearly 60 years later that footage of the massive blast was released.
In August 2020, during the height of the coronavirus lockdowns, Russia declassified footage of the ‘Tsar Bomba,’ the most powerful nuclear bomb ever detonated. At a time when people were preoccupied with binge-watching Friends and Tiger King, this release was a stark contrast.
The footage, shared by Russia’s state nuclear agency Rosatom, was part of a documentary celebrating the 75th anniversary of Russia’s atomic industry. Developed between 1956 and 1961, the “King of Bombs” was a hydrogen bomb with a yield of 50 megatons, making it 3,300 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
When tested in October 1961, the Tsar Bomb produced a 60 km-high mushroom cloud, captured by cameras both on the ground and aboard two Russian aircraft. The documentary, marked with the label ‘Top Secret,’ detailed every phase of the test, from the bomb’s transport to the aftermath. The bomb weighed 27 tons and measured around eight meters in length.
A narrator in the film explained: “The testing of an exceptionally powerful hydrogen load … confirmed that the Soviet Union is in possession of a thermonuclear weapon with power of 50 megatons, 100 megatons and more.”
The explosion was so immense that its shockwave could be felt 70 miles away, and the blast was visible from an astonishing 620 miles. The Tsar Bomb was one of many tests conducted during the nuclear arms race, but it became one of the last above-ground detonations after the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 was signed by the US, UK, and the Soviet Union, mandating that future tests take place underground.