Although analysts are doubtful about North Korea's claim to have carried out a successful hydrogen bomb test, the size of the explosion was anywhere between seven and 10 times more powerful than previous tests.

It would not be the first time North Korea exaggerated its achievements - they wrongly claimed to have tested an H-bomb last January - but the country is not only on the right path towards achieving its ambitions, but it is doing so far quicker than anyone expected.

Previously North Korea has tested atomic bombs, similar to those used by the US on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 - attacks that killed around 200,000 people.

Image: The mushroom cloud of the first test of a hydrogen bomb, codenamed Ivy Mike, by the US in 1952

An H-bomb, also known as a thermonuclear device, would be immeasurably more destructive.

Atom bombs are measured in kilotons - the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had yields of 13 kilotons and 21 kilotons respectively.


Image: The devastation in Hiroshima after the first atomic bomb was dropped by the US

Hydrogen bombs though are graded in megatons.

The most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated was the Soviet Union's "Tsar Bomba," in 1961.

It had a yield of 50 megatons, making it 3,800 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.

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Image: America dropped a second atomic bomb, on Nagasaki, in 1945

In short, the hydrogen bomb is a completely different and altogether more frightening prospect and it would put North Korea into an exclusive club of only five other countries: the US, UK, China, France and Russia.

If a bomb similar to that dropped on Nagasaki fell on New York today, it would create a fireball radius of 200 metres, and a thermal radiation radius of 2.21 kilometres.

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If a bomb the scale of the Tsar Bomba was dropped on New York, there would be a fireball radius of more than three kilometres, and a thermal radiation radius of 60 kilometres.

One comparison I have often heard puts it into starker but more understandable terms: an atom bomb would destroy much of Manhattan whereas an H-bomb would wipe out the entire city of New York and surrounding areas. That is why this weekend's test, whether an h-bomb or not, is another level.

Image: An H-bomb would wipe out the entire city of New York and surrounding areas

Kim Jong Un has accelerated the country's nuclear programme far beyond anything his father oversaw - there have been three nuclear tests and four missile tests in the last two years alone.

If North Korea hasn't already developed a hydrogen bomb then it is likely it will, before long, unless dramatically stopped.

The reality now though, is that the world needs to stop agonising over how it will get rid of a North Korean nuke and instead consider how it is best going live with it