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Kirana Hills Site

Coordinates: 31°58′15″N 72°45′26″E / 31.97083°N 72.75722°E / 31.97083; 72.75722
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Kirana Hills Site
Kirana
Part of PAF Base Mushaf
Sargodha District in Punjab, Pakistan
Near Sargodha, Punjab in Pakistan
The summit of Kirana Hills.
Kirana Hills Site is located in Pakistan
Kirana Hills Site
Kirana Hills Site
Coordinates31°58′15″N 72°45′26″E / 31.97083°N 72.75722°E / 31.97083; 72.75722
TypeRadar and Weapons Complex
Area100 sq mi (260 km2)[1]
Height1,050 ft (320 m)[2]
Length12 mi (19 km)[1]
Site information
OwnerMinistry of Defense
OperatorNational Defence Complex
(Main contractor)
Controlled by Pakistan Air Force[3]
Open to
the public		Yes
StatusActive
Defining authorityGeological Survey of Pakistan (GSP)
Site history
Built1979 (1979)
Built byPakistan Army Corps of Engineers
In use1981–95
Garrison information
GarrisonNo. 4091 Squadron
Test information
Subcritical tests24 under Kirana-I
Remediation1995

The Kirana Hills Site[4] is an extensive rocky mountain range and a reservation of the Ministry of Defense (MoD) located in the Sargodha District in Punjab, Pakistan.[4][5][6][7]

Known locally as "Black Mountains"[8] due to its brownish landscape, it is expanded between the township of Rabwah and the metropolitan city of Sargodha.[9]

The highest peak of the Kirana Hills are measured at the 1,050 ft (320 m)[2] with average peaks at highest peak is about 600 feet (180 m).[10]

Overview

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Etymology

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The Kirana Hills is a series of bedrock hills that were named after a small village that once resided before the villagers moved to the township of Rabwah (now Chanab Nagar) and the planned city of Sargodha.[11]

Topography and geology

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The Kirana Hills is an extensive rocky mountain range located in the Sargodha District, and about 80 mi (130 km) in distance from the Salt Range.[12][13] In 1913, the British geologists conducted extensive investigations on the rock formations in the Kirana Hills, which are different from the rest of its parent mountains ranges; the rocks are noticeably black in formation.[13]

The highest peak at the Kirana Hills is measured exactly at 1,050 ft (320 m) by the British surveyors from the level of the plain in 1913.[2] The average height in the Kirana Hills are recorded at 600 ft (180 m) by the Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) in their studies of hydrology reports in 1967.[14] The Kirana Hills are expanded and scattered over an area of about 100 sq mi (260 km2) and about 12 mi (19 km) in length.[1]

According to the Pakistani scientific investigations, the rocks are mainly hardened shales and slates with minor amount of quartzites which contained with layers of hematite, thin bands of rhyolites, tuff and diabase.[15][16]

In 1970s, the Geological Survey of Pakistan conducted a survey to find uranium ores and began the mining of uranium after its geologists confirmed the deposits of uranium ores at the Kirana Hills.[17]

Climate and wildlife

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The landform of the Kirana Hills is known to be a steppe with heavy grassland besides the Rocky Mountains.[18] The Pakistan Meteorological Department reported its weather conditions to be extreme with the highest have been recorded to 50 °C (122 °F) in the summer while the minimum temperature recorded is as low as freezing point 0 °C (32 °F) in the winter.[19][20]

Its environs are heavily infested with wild boars.[21]

Venue

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Radar and weapons complex

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In 1970, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) acquired the Kirana Hills as a defense site for the Pakistan Air Force.[3] The Pakistan Air Force established a radar station with the commissioning of the No. 4091 Squadron at the Kirana Hills, which is still in commission at the Kirana Hills.[22] The Kirana Hills forms a larger part of the Mushaf Air Force Base in Sargodha, which falls into its area of command.[23]

In 1978–79, the Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers acquired the range for the possible test sites and began its boring operations for the tunnels measuring 100 to 150 feet (30 to 46 m) in length, as a potential for nuclear test sites.[23][24][25][26]

According to Pakistani admissions, there have been forty-six short tunnels that were bored, with Special Development Works (SDW) constructing the two horizontal and three vertical underground line of sight sites to withheld 24–40 kilotonnes of TNT (100–170 TJ) of energy blast from the nuclear weapons.[18] At one of its tunnels the Chinese M-11 missiles were once housed before the United States Intelligence found out, and moved the missiles for further testings at an unknown locations by the Air Force.[18]

Subcritical testing activities

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Kirana Hills on Faisalabad Road, Sargodha.

The Kirana-I was the codename for the 24 subcritical physical experiments on nuclear weapon designs that took place under the leadership of the Pakistan Air Force with the Pakistan's national defense laboratories between 1983–95.[27][28][29]

The first subcritical experiment on physics package was carried out on 11 March 1983 but the subcritical experiments are not true full-scale nuclear weapon testing.[30]

The Pakistan Institution of Nuclear Science & Technology (Pinstech), Metallurgical Laboratories (ML), and the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) conducted various investigations and studies on dynamical properties of materials, radiation effects, and secondary weapon assessments for the nuclear explosive devices at the Kirana base to validate the viability of the nuclear weapons before conducting nuclear testing.[31][32]

The subcritical physics experiments proved crucial in understanding and preparing the physical package to evolved into a weapon pits to be delivered by the Pakistan Air Force's combat aircraft stationed at the Sargodha Air Force Base.[33][24]

Boring and tunnel operations were carried out at night to avoid the American detection from its satellites fixated on the region.[24] The army engineers also worked on relocating the wildlife, specifically the wild boars, to stay out of the weapon-testing tunnels before the diagnosticians housed the tunnels.[24] The tunnels at the Kirana Hills are composed of multiple cables, line-of-sight screen boxes, oscillators, computers, and other diagnostics equipments were installed by the national laboratories' diagnostics teams.[34]

First diagnostics test on a working nuclear weapon device was reportedly designed in vintage style, which had the push-button to create an electronic circuit.[34] The push-button mechanism, however, was replaced with laser activation system after the error was discovered during the trigger testing.[35][36] The HMX and PBX explosives were prepared for number of subcritical experiments by the weapon-testing laboratories.[37] This first subcritical physics experiment was carried out on 11 March 1983.[38]

Merger with PAF Base Mushaf

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In 1995, the Pakistan Air Force took over the host responsibilities for the nation's military nuclear weapons program. With the Clinton administration continuously monitoring the region, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) moved the subcritical experiments to unknown location in Kala Chitta Range, which is in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.[24] The Pakistani government released a tender for the remediation works at the Kirana Hills opened the parts of the site for public tourism in 1995.[24]

The Pakistan Air Force Radar Station for monitoring the airspace of Pakistan is still active with its unit Sq-No. 4091. [39]

In spite of its clean-up, the Kirana Base is still in commissioned as a principle nuclear installation site for the Pakistan Air Force, according to the Indian intelligence analysts.[4]

See also

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Sources

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References

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  1. ^ a b c East Pakistan Geographical Society 1964, p. 28.
  2. ^ a b c Geological Survey 1913, p. 230.
  3. ^ a b Shaikh 2000, p. 310.
  4. ^ a b c Bhat (retd), Col Vinayak (22 November 2017). "Pakistan is protecting its nuclear missiles by building underground fortresses". ThePrint. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
  5. ^ Mahajan 2009, pp. 100–110
  6. ^ Ali 2002, pp. 25–26
  7. ^ Smith 2007, pp. 92–93
  8. ^ DoE&ES 2012, p. 33
  9. ^ Wikimaps. "Kirana Hills". Wikimaps. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  10. ^ DoE&ES 2012, pp. 4–5
  11. ^ Greenman, Bennett & Swarzenski 1967, p. H13.
  12. ^ Abbasi, Arshad Mehmood; Bussmann, Rainer W. (26 March 2021). Ethnobiology of Mountain Communities in Asia. Springer Nature. p. 165. ISBN 978-3-030-55494-1. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
  13. ^ a b Geological Survey 1913, p. 229.
  14. ^ Greenman, Bennett & Swarzenski 1967, p. 12.
  15. ^ Touche, Thomas Henry Digges La (1918). A Bibliography of Indian Geology. Office of the Geological Survey of India. p. 276. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
  16. ^ Mahajan 2009, p. 100.
  17. ^ Khan 2012, p. 122.
  18. ^ a b c Khan 2012, p. 183.
  19. ^ "District of Sargodha". Archived from the original on 26 June 2015. Retrieved 15 June 2015.
  20. ^ Davies, R. G.; Crawford, A. R. (1 May 2009). "Petrography and age of the rocks of Bulland Hill, Kirana Hills, Sarghoda District, West Pakistan". Geological Magazine. 108 (3): 235. doi:10.1017/S001675680005158X. S2CID 128998580.
  21. ^ Khan 2012, pp. 5-6:183.
  22. ^ Sehgal, Ikram (2004). "Defence Journal". Defence Journal. 8 (3–4). Ikram ul-Majeed Sehgal: 58. Retrieved 20 February 2024.
  23. ^ a b Khan 2012, pp. 183, 500.
  24. ^ a b c d e f Azam, Rai Muhammad Saleh (June 2000). "When Mountains Move". Islamabad: Defence Journal. p. 1. Archived from the original on 1 April 2012. Retrieved 15 June 2015.
  25. ^ Verma 2001, pp. 250–251
  26. ^ Wilson, John (13 August 2004). "Analysis: Custodians as proliferators". Observer Research Foundation. Retrieved 30 July 2011.
  27. ^ Futter 2015, pp. 175–176
  28. ^ Khan 2012, pp. 180–185
  29. ^ Khan 2012, pp. 188–189
  30. ^ Wood, Houston G.; Glaser, Alexander; Kemp, R. Scott (2008). "The gas centrifuge and nuclear weapons proliferation". Physics Today. 61 (9): 40–45. Bibcode:2008PhT....61i..40W. doi:10.1063/1.2982121.
  31. ^ Khan, N.A.; Mahmood, N.A.; Khaliq, M.A. (December 1979). "Radioactive survey of Kirana hills using solid state nuclear track detectors". Nuclear Tracks. 3 (4): 213–218. doi:10.1016/0191-278X(79)90018-0.
  32. ^ Khan 2012, pp. 189–190
  33. ^ Khan 2012, p. 186.
  34. ^ a b Khan 2012, p. 185.
  35. ^ Khan 2012, pp. 185–186.
  36. ^ "Koh Kambaran (Ras Koh Hills)". Pakistan Encyclopedia. Pakistan Information and History Encyclopedia. 5 February 2009. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
  37. ^ Khan 2012, p. 189.
  38. ^ "Pakistan Became a Nuclear State in 1983-Dr. Samar", The Nation, (Islamabad) May 2, 2003 accessed on August 6, 2009
  39. ^ "Facebook-- An Air Force Radar over a kirana Hills in Sargodha". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 25 February 2024.

Bibliography

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