00:00On July 16, 1945, a blinding flash lit up the sky over New Mexico, visible for miles.
00:20Its shockwave still reverberates around the world today.
00:23From this observation tower, scientists watch the result of their years of work.
00:30Miles into the air rises the giant shape of the now-historic explosion.
00:37The Trinity test, the fruit of a top-secret Manhattan project, was the world's first nuclear blast, but it would not be the last.
00:45Less than a month later, the U.S. would drop a smaller atomic bomb on Japan.
00:49One bomb exploding 1,500 feet above the target, leaving no crater.
00:54Half a million people lived in Hiroshima, a town the size of Sheffield.
01:02Here and there, an isolated structure reminds the onlooker that here was once a city.
01:08140,000 people died at Hiroshima, vaporized or burned alive, or later dying from the effects of radiation.
01:14Three days later, the bombings of Nagasaki killed 70,000 more.
01:20The attacks, at the end of World War II, marked the start of an 80-year arms race that still shapes global security today.
01:26The houses actually burn before the following blast brings disintegration.
01:32Early nuclear weapons were essentially carefully timed mechanical devices, like world-ending mousetraps.
01:38After the Manhattan Project, the real challenge wasn't the science, but the fuel.
01:41After all, the Manhattan Project built the Trinity bomb in wooden shacks in the desert,
01:46and it didn't take long for others to follow, in the race for ever-deadlier weapons of mass destruction.
01:52A brilliance of 500 suns lights hundreds of miles of the Pacific,
01:57and the force of a million tons of TNT is released.
02:01Fifteen seconds later, the light is still unbearable.
02:04Observers may well squint, for they may have witnessed a prelude to world destruction.
02:09Eight countries officially have nuclear weapons.
02:13The U.S., Russia, the U.K., France, China, India, Pakistan, and most recently, North Korea.
02:23Israel is believed to have them, but has never officially confirmed it.
02:27China, which has long threatened to take Taiwan by force, tested its first nuclear bomb in the 1960s,
02:33pushing Taiwan to attempt developing its own bomb in the early 1970s.
02:37But the effort was ultimately halted under international pressure.
02:42Meanwhile, the world asks,
02:44if this is the pinnacle of man's creative genius,
02:47then surely world peace is not beyond his reach.
02:51Eighty years since the Trinity test,
02:57Taiwan is holding air raid drills as part of its annual hangwang exercises.
03:02In the event of an attack,
03:03civilians are expected to take cover in shelters across the country.
03:07But against modern thermonuclear weapons,
03:10those shelters would offer little protection.
03:13If a bomb like the Trinity device were detonated over Taipei,
03:16it could level much of the city and kill nearly 200,000 people.
03:21By comparison,
03:23if one of China's Dongfeng-4 missiles hit the same spot,
03:25it could kill over 3 million.
03:28And if it were Russia's Tsar Bomba,
03:30the most powerful weapon ever detonated,
03:32the death toll could reach 6 million.
03:35In seconds, the fireball erupts into a geyser
03:38that towers 25 miles into the stratosphere,
03:41spreading into a 100-mile-wide mushroom cloud.
03:44Treaties and arms controls have helped reduce the threat of nuclear war.
03:48But we are by no means in the clear.
03:50North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States.
03:57They will be met with fire and fury,
04:01like the world has never seen.
04:03Since the start of 2025 there have been multiple conflicts
04:19involving nuclear-armed states and their allies.
04:21Fighting broke out between Pakistan and India.
04:37Russia's invasion of Ukraine is ongoing,
04:39and the U.S. has carried out bombing missions in Yemen and Iran,
04:42and Israel continues its war in Gaza.
04:44And with China stepping up preparations to invade Taiwan,
04:48another could be on the horizon.
04:50As humanity continues to balance on the tightrope
04:53it first stepped onto 80 years ago,
04:55it's unlikely we've felt the last aftershocks of the Trinity test.
04:59John Tsu and Bryn Thomas for Taiwan Plus.
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