| Downloaded on October 22, 2001, from <http://www.piads.com.pk/nuke.html>. (This article was published in The Nation, Islamabad, on 28 May 2000). PAKISTAN INSTITUTE FOR AIR DEFENCE STUDIES PAKISTAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAMME Where Mountains Move: The Story of Chagai-I Rai Muhammad Saleh Azam Pakistan crossed the nuclear threshold to become a declared nuclear weapons state on 28 May 1998 after it detonated 5 nuclear devices in the Ras Koh Hills in Chagai, Baluchistan. Chagai�s nexus with Pakistan�s nuclear weapons programme first became known to the Pakistani public and the world back in the early 1990s when a book, Critical Mass, written by William E. Burrows and Robert Windrem was published. However, the story goes further than that. Chagai: The Background The story of Chagai began in Quetta, Baluchistan in 1976 when Brig. Muhammad Sarfraz, Chief of Staff at 5 Corps Headquarters received a transmission from the Pakistan Army General Headquarters (GHQ), Rawalpindi. The message directed the Corps Commander to make available an Army helicopter to a forthcoming team of scientists from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) for operational reconnaissance of some areas in Baluchistan. The PAEC team comprising of Dr. Ishfaq Ahmed, Member (Technical) and Dr. Ahsan Mubarak landed at Quetta and were provided the helicopter as per the GHQ instructions. Over a span of three days, the PAEC scientists made several reconnaissance tours of the area between Turbat, Awaran and Khusdar to the south and Naukundi and Kharan to the east. Their objective was to find a suitable location for an underground nuclear test, preferably a mountain. After a hectic and careful search they found a mountain which matched their specifications. This was a 185-metre high granite mountain in the Ras Koh Hills in the Chagai Division of Baluchistan which at their highest point rise to a height of 9,367 ft. (3,009 metres). Ras Koh Hills are independent of and should not be confused with the Chagai Hills further north on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, in which, to date, no nuclear test activity has taken place. The PAEC requirement was that the mountain should be "bone dry" and capable of withstanding a 20 kilotonne nuclear explosion from the inside. Tests were conducted to measure the water content of the mountains and the surrounding area and to measure the capability of the mountain�s rock to withstand a nuclear test. Once this was confirmed, Dr. Ishfaq Ahmed commenced work on a three-dimensional survey of the area. This survey took one year to conduct and, in 1977, it was decided that the proposed tunnel to be bored in the mountain should have an overburden of a 700 metre high mountain over it, thus sufficient to withstand 20-40 kilotonnes of nuclear force. In the same year, Brig. Muhammad Sarfraz, who, in the interim, had been posted to GHQ Rawalpindi, was summoned by President Zia-ul-Haq and was told that the PAEC wanted to lease him from the Army to carry out work related to the Pakistan nuclear programme. This resulted in the creation of the Special Development Works (SDW), a subsidiary of the PAEC but directly reporting to the Chief of the Army Staff which was entrusted with the task of preparing the nuclear test sites. Brig. Sarfraz, for all practical purposes, headed the SDW, a nuclear variant of the Pakistan Army�s famous Frontier Works Organization (FWO) which built the Karakorum Highway. The primary task of the organization was to prepare underground test sites (both horizontal and vertical shaft tunnels) for 20-kilotonne nuclear devices, with all the allied infrastructure and facilities. The sites had to be designed in such a way that they could be utilized at short notice (in less than a week) and were to be completed by December 1979 at the latest. After a series of meetings between SDW and PAEC officials and the President of Pakistan, it was decided that SDW should prepare 2-3 separate sites. Therefore, a second site for a vertical shaft tunnel was prepared at Kharan, 150 km from the Ras Koh test site, located in a flat desert valley between the Ras Koh Hills to the north and the Siahan Range to the south. Subsequently, the Chagai-Ras Koh-Kharan areas became restricted entry zones and were closed to the public, prompting rumours that Pakistan had given airbases to the United States. The fact that USAID had set up an office in Turbat, Baluchistan only added fuel to such rumours. A 3,325 feet long horizontal shaft tunnel was bored in the Ras Koh Hills which was 8-9 feet in diameter and was shaped like a fishhook for it to be self-sealing. The vertical shaft tunnel at Kharan was 300 by 200 feet and was L-shaped. Both test sites had an array of extensive cables, sensors and monitoring stations. In addition to the main tunnels, SDW built 24 cold test sites, 46 short tunnels and 35 underground accommodations for troops and command, control and monitoring facilities. At Ras Koh, some of these were located inside the granite mountains. Both the nuclear test sites at Ras Koh and Kharan took 2-3 years to prepare and were completed by 1980, before Pakistan acquired the capability to develop a nuclear weapon. This showed both confidence and resolve in Pakistan�s nuclear programme as well as faith in Almighty God. The Wah Group: Designers and Manufacturers of Pakistan�s Nuclear Device In March 1974, Hafeez Qureshi, who at the time was heading the Radiation and Isotope Applications Division (RIAD) at the Pakistan Institute of Science & Technology (PINSTECH) at Nilore and a mechanical engineer par excellence, was summoned by the then Chairman of the PAEC, Munir Ahmad Khan in a meeting that was attended, among others, by Dr. Abdus Salam, then Adviser for Science and Technology to the Government of Pakistan and Dr. Riaz-ud-Din, Member (Technical), PAEC. Qureshi was told that he join hands on a project of national importance with another expert, Dr. Zaman Sheikh, then working with DESTO. The word "bomb" was never used in the meeting but Qureshi knew exactly what he was being asked to do. Their task would be to build the mechanics of the bomb. The project would be located at Wah, appropriately next to the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF), strategically close to the hills and conveniently close to the capital, Islamabad. The work at Wah began under the code of "Research & Development" and Qureshi, Zaman and their team of engineers and scientists came to be known as "The Wah Group". Initial work was limited to research and development of the explosives to be used in the nuclear device. However, the terms of reference expanded to include chemical, mechanical and precision engineering and triggering mechanisms. It procured equipment from foreign sources where it could and developed its own technology indigenously where restrictions prevented the purchase of equipment from abroad. For the next part of the article, Click here. |