How the USSR tried to create a reservoir with a NUCLEAR BOMB & ended up with 'Atomic Lake'

EXTRAORDINARY video footage showing how the Soviet Union detonated an underground nuclear charge to create a reservoir has resurfaced.

The remarkable film shows the bomb going off as a huge dark mushroom cloud fills the sky as it leaves behind a vast crater.

The crater formed a dam to the existing river while a channel was cut into the vast hole to allow the reservoir behind it to fill up with water and create a lake.

The clip showcases the January 1965 explosion at Chagan, on the edge of the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan.

Lake Chagan explosionMEDIADRUMWORLD

The Soviets detonated a huge nuclear bomb to create a reservoir at Lake Chagan

The Chagan trials were designed to test the suitability of nuclear explosions for creating reservoirs.

Lake Chagan, as it is known, still exists today but is still radioactive and is nicknamed the 'Atomic Lake'.

The test was carried out under the banner of “Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy” which aimed to find peaceful uses for nuclear devices.

It was the largest detonation carried out as a 140 kiloton device was placed in a 584-foot-deep hole in the dry bed of the Chagan River so that the crater lip would dam up the river during periods of high flow.

The tests were carried out under the banner of “Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy” and was the Soviet version of “Operation Plowshare” – a similar program devised by the US.

The Kremlin took the programme very seriously and it ended up being much larger than the US version in terms of the number of applications explored with field experiments and the extent to which they were introduced into industrial use. 

While the US carried 27 tests before realising it was a bad idea and terminating the program in 1977, the Soviets continued right up to 1989 during which as many as 156 nuclear tests were conducted.


The head of the Medium Machine Building Ministry takes a dip in Lake Chagan

The blast created a crater 1,312-foot across and 328-foot deep with a lip height of 65 to 125 feet.

The Soviets were proud of Lake Chagan at the time of its creation and the Minister of the Medium Machine Building Ministry can even be seen taking a dip in the lake near the end of the footage. 

Water was also used to feed cattle in the area.

During the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union conducted nuclear explosions all over northeastern Kazakhstan to investigate the possibility of using nuclear power for peaceful construction purposes such as moving earth, creating canals and reservoirs, drilling for oil and so on.