Khushab

Intorduce yourself and share your city photos and tell us about your beautiful city of Khushab.

Information:

Khushab is a town in Khushab District in the Pakistani province of Punjab.

This is a historical city of province Punjab. Geographically this is quite unique district of Pakistan which has mountains, deserts, lush green harvesting land, lakes and river. SOON valley is one of the most beautiful hill stations of Pakistan. This district is quite rich in natural resources (salt & coal) etc.. People are very hardworking and most of them are associated with farming and agriculture. Khushab is also known for its delicious sweets specially DHODA and PATEESA. Name of this city "Khushab" was given by King Shar Shah Surry on arrival in area. Khushab means "Metha Pani" or Pure Water.

There is a 50 MWT heavy water reactor in Khushab. The facility is located around 105 km NW from Faisalabad and around 45 km West from Sargodha Air Force Base.

This reactor shows no visible output of electricity generation. This facility is said to produce enough plutonium for 1-4 nuclear weapons each year.

It has around 8 cooling towers located 50-70 metres due east of the main reactor building.

The facility has a heavy water plant on site located around 3 km south of the main reactor building. The heavy water plant is located at 31°59'; 72°11'.

The facility is heavily guarded, with both reactor building complex and heavy water plant having two individual security cordons each over and above the main facility cordon.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khushab

_________________
Regards,

Forum Pakistan
Be proud to be a Pakistani (instead of being a Punjabi, Sindhi, Baloch or Pushtoon)

The 50 MWt, heavy water and natural uranium research reactor at Khushab is a central element of Pakistan's program for production of plutonium and tritium for advanced compact warheads. The Khushab facility, like that at Kahuta, is not subject to IAEA inspections, but the security of the site is professed by the Pakistani government. Khushab, with a capacity variously reported at between 40 MWT to 50 MWT [and as high as 70 MWT], was "commissioned" in March 1996, and had been under construction with Chinese assistance since the mid-1980s. According to a Pakistani press report ["Pakistan's Indigenous Nuclear Reactor Starts Up," Islamabad The Nation, April 13, 1998], the Khushab plutonium production reactor had gone critical and began operating in early 1998.

Plutonium is the preferred material for building light, sophisticated warheads, since highly enriched uranium (HEU) generally results in bulkier weapons. Prior to the start-up of Khushab, Pakistan was dependent on the production of highly enriched uranium at Kahuta. The Khushab reactor provides Pakistan the ability to produce enough plutonium each year to fabricate at least one bomb, and perhaps as many as three to five bombs [depending on the efficiency of the bomb design and the reactor's actual output.