Despite Wide Opposition, France Conducts 4th N-Test

Less than a week after 95 nations voted to condemn its nuclear testing, France detonated a fourth underground nuclear blast Tuesday at its test site in the South Pacific.

The Defense Ministry said the blast was equal to 40 kilotons, or 40,000 tons of TNT. That makes the bomb nearly three times as powerful as the one that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. Seismologists said the explosion was as strong as a magnitude-5.1 earthquake.

France conducted the test beneath Mururoa atoll, 750 miles southeast of Tahiti in French Polynesia, at 12:30 p.m. local time, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

“Once again, the strong - France - has dominated the small - Polynesia,” said the Rev. Jacques Ihorai, president of the Polynesian Evangelical Church.