Quite a few people are curious about these seemingly mysterious earthquakes that have been occurring in Pakistan lately. So I decided to give my two cents on this topic.
First explanation: these earthquakes could just be that earthquakes.
However, some of you may not be convinced that these are indeed the earthquakes. The reason for your suspicion could be the frequency at which these earthquakes are happening. If you are not convinced that these are indeed the earthquakes, then you may be wondering what are these then?
First explanation: maybe Pakistanis are doing the nuclear tests.
Second explanation: maybe Pakistani nuclear weapons are accidentally exploding.
So let us talk about accidental explosion of fission bombs. We are going to keep our conjectures confined to fission bombs. It is because, to the best of my knowledge, Pakistan does not posses fusion bombs. I will begin with stating that, to the best of my knowledge, as of yet, we do not have any recored incident of a nuclear bomb exploding accidentally.
Having said that, I would like to mention, theoretically speaking, it is possible for a fission bomb to explode accidentally depending on the design of the bomb. In a fission bomb, one of the four types of triggers can be used. I will list them below:
- Gun-type design
- Implosion design
- Neutron initiators
- Barometric-pressure sensors
I obviously do not know which one of these triggers are being used by Pakistani fission bombs. However, I do know that, as far as accidental detonation of a bomb is concerned, theoretically speaking of course, Gun-Type Design is the candidate of our choice. Why? In this design, you have a bullet consisting of Uranium-235 which is fired at a target mass consisting of Uranium-235 (main fission material). As you guessed it, some type of explosive is used to propel the Uranium-235 bullet. If something can cause this explosive to explode then, it will trigger the fission reaction, resulting in the explosion of fission bomb. Typically, the casing of a nuclear bomb is very strong and can withstand quite a bit of stress and therefore accidental explosion is highly unlikely.
As far as the designs that may contain one of the other three types of triggers, it is quite possible that electrical circuits can malfunction and therefore accidental fission reaction (nuclear explosion) is possible. Keep in mind that, the designers place appropriate safeguards when they design nuclear bombs. So it is not quite easy for a bomb to go off accidentally.
Last but not least, a team of qualified saboteurs should be able to sabotage any bomb.
Now, I hope you have enough information to makeup your own mind on this topic.