Windjammer
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In the afternoon of Monday, 11 May 1998 Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee stunned the world by announcing at a hurriedly convened press conference that earlier that day India had conducted three nuclear tests. International observers were, if anything, even more astonished by the announcement two days later that two additional tests had been conducted.
It was decided that since the Indian nuclear tests had given an opportunity to Pakistan to conduct nuclear tests after 14 years of conducting only cold tests, the maximum benefit should be derived from this opportunity. It was, therefore, decided, that multiple tests would be carried out of varying yields as well as the live testing of the triggering mechanisms. Since the tunnel at the Ras Koh Hills had the capability to conduct six tests, therefore, six different nuclear devices of varying designs, sizes and yields were selected, all of which had been previously cold tested.
The tunnel under Koh Kambaran was 1 kilometer long and is described as L-shaped (just as the Indian vertical shafts were L-shaped). The reason for this is that the shaft leading to the entrance is thus shielded from the device detonation, and energy cannot propagate straight up the shaft from the device to the entrance. The description of the tunnel has having separate assembly rooms indicates that in addition to the L-tunnel at the end, the main tunnel had a number of other side tunnels branching off it every couple of hundred meters.
The nuclear devices - in sub-assembly form - were flown from Rawalpindi to a designated airfield in Baluchistan (Quetta?) on a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) C-130 Hercules transport aircraft (it is curious that so many would all be entrusted to a single aircraft though). Four PAF F-16s armed with air-to-air missiles provided escort, with secret orders to shoot the C-130 down if it tried to fly out of Pakistani airspace. The F-16s were ordered to keep their radio communications equipment turned off so that no orders, in the interim, could be conveyed to them to act otherwise. They were also ordered to ignore any orders to the contrary that got through to them during the duration of the flight even if such orders originated from Air Headquarters.
On 19 May 1998, two teams of 140 PAEC scientists, engineers and technicians left for Chagai, Baluchistan on two separate PIA Boeing 737 flights. Also on board were teams from the Wah Group, the Theoretical Group, the Directorate of Technical Development (DTD) and the Diagnostics Group. Some of the men and equipment were transported via road using NLC trucks escorted by the members of the Special Services Group (SSG), the elite commando force of the Pakistan Army.
In the pre-dawn hours of 28 May Pakistan cut the communication links for all Pakistani seismic stations to the outside world. All military and strategic installations in Pakistan were put on alert, and the Pakistan Air Force F-16A and F-7MP air defense fighters were placed on strip alert - ready to begin their take-off roll at any moment.
At Chagai, it was a clear day. Bright and sunny without a cloud in sight. All personnel, civil and military were evacuated from ‘Ground Zero’ except for members of the Diagnostics Group and the firing team. They had been involved in digging out and removing some equipment lying there since 1978.
Ten members of the team reached the Observation Post (OP) located 10-kilometres away from Ground Zero. The firing equipment was checked at 1:30 p.m. and prayers were offered. An hour later, at 2:30 p.m., a Pakistan Army helicopter carrying the team of observers including PAEC Chairman, Dr. Ishfaq Ahmed, KRL Director, Dr. A.Q. Khan, and four other scientists from KRL including Dr. Fakhr Hashmi, Dr. Javed Ashraf Mirza, Dr. M. Nasim Khan and S. Mansoor Ahmed arrived at the site. Also accompanying them was a Pakistan Army team headed by General Zulfikar Ali, Chief of the Combat Division.
At 3:00 p.m. a truck carrying the last of the personnel and soldiers involved in the site preparations passed by the OP. Soon afterwards, the all-clear was given to conduct the test as the site had been fully evacuated.
Amongst the 20 men present, one young man, Muhammad Arshad, the Chief Scientific Officer, who had designed the triggering mechanism, was selected to push the button. He was asked to recite "All praise be to Allah" and push the button. At exactly 3:16 p.m. the button was pushed and Muhammad Arshad stepped from obscurity into history.
As soon as the button was pushed, the control system was taken over by computer. The signal was passed through the air link initiating six steps in the firing sequence while at the same time bypassing, one after the other, each of the security systems put in place to prevent accidental detonation. Each step was confirmed by the computer, switching on power supplies for each stage. On the last leg of the sequence, the high voltage power supply responsible for detonating the nuclear devices was activated.
As the firing sequence passed through each level and shut down the safety switches and activating the power supply, each and every step was being recorded by the computer via the telemetry which is an apparatus for recording reading of an instrument and transmitting them via radio. A radiation-hardened television camera with special lenses recorded the outer surface of the mountain.
The voltage reached the triggers on all five devices simultaneously in all the explosive lenses with microsecond synchronization.
As the firing sequence continued through its stages, 20 pairs of eyes were glued on the mountain 10 kilometers away. There was deafening silence within and outside of the OP.
A short while after the button was pushed, the earth in and around the Ras Koh Hills trembled. The OP vibrated as smoke and dust burst out through the five points where the nuclear devices were located. The mountain shook and changed colour as the dust of thousands of years was dislodged from its surface. Its black granite rock turning white as de-oxidisation from the radioactive nuclear forces operating from within. A Huge cloud of beige dust then enveloped the mountain.
The time-frame, from the moment when the button was pushed to the moment the detonations inside the mountain took place, was thirty seconds. For those in the OP, watching in pin-drop silence with their eyes focused on the mountain, those thirty seconds were the longest in their lives. It was the culmination of a journey which started over 20 years ago. It was the moment of truth and triumph against heavy odds, trials and tribulations. At the end of those thirty seconds lay Pakistan’s date with destiny.
The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs would later describe it as "Pakistan’s finest hour". Pakistan had become the world’s 7th nuclear power and the first nuclear weapons state in the Islamic World.
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