China has tested its most powerful non-nuclear bomb, according to a state-run media, which nicknamed it "the Chinese version of 'the mother of all bombs'", in reference to an American missile dropped in Afghanistan in 2017. It has been dropped by a HK-6k heavy bomber.

GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB) (Picture source: Bill Spidle/PrimePortal)

Norinco has posted on its website a video that shows for a few seconds the dropping of a bomb. It crashes on a meadow, before producing a gigantic fireball and a plume of black smoke. On social networks, the official news agency Xinhua described the bomb, presented for the first time, as "the Chinese version of 'the mother of all bombs'". It has been dropped by a H-6K, equivalent to the Russian Tupolev Tu-16.

According to the same source, the devastating power of this bomb is "lower only than nuclear weapons' one". Neither Norinco nor New China provided details on the date or place of the explosion, nor on its range. The Chinese bomb might be about five to six meters long, but smaller and lighter than the American MOAB, according to Wei Dongxu, a military analyst based in Beijing and quoted Friday by the semi-official daily Global Times. "The massive explosion that is generated can easily and totally wipe out fortified ground targets," Wei said.

On 13 April 2017, in Afghanistan, a USAF Lockheed MC-130 Hercules dropped the most powerful conventional weapon in the U.S. arsenal, a GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB) containing 11 tons of explosive, which they dubbed "mother of all bombs". The stated goal was to destroy a network of underground ISIS group in the east of the country.