Chinese nuclear submarine docked at Karachi last year too close to comfort, show Google Earth images

A Chinese nuclear submarine had reportedly been docked at Karachi last year, according to satellite images revealed by Google Earth. This is worrying for India because according to an NDTV report, the submarine was likely being used to scrutinise the movement of Indian warships more closely than ever before. The report also said that the docked submarine was the Type 093 Shang submarine. A nuclear-powered submarine has an unlimited range of operations because nuclear reactors do not need much refuelling. The image was first spotted by a satellite imagery expert @rajfortyseven, who shared images of the docked submarine on Twitter.

#China #PLAN #Pakistan #Navy undersea coop 2016:Two subs visiting #Karachi on sat imagery #Type91SSN (5/20) & #Type39SSK (10/3) with tenders pic.twitter.com/nmy1WomY0o

— 卫纳夜格.巴特 Col Vinayak Bhat (Retd) @Raj47 (@rajfortyseven) January 6, 2017

The NDTV report also said that the submarine is armed with six torpedo tubes from which sophisticated anti-ship missiles can be fired. This report came to light merely a day after another report, recently published by the Ministry of Shipping, which said that India is far behind in all the key performance indicators related to port-led development than China. Underlining India’s inability to optimise on its richly endowed maritime advantages in the last half a century, the report said that China leads India by a factor of seven times to 16 times on the measured parameters. On Thursday, Chinese media also criticised New Delhi for carrying out Agni-IV and V missile tests whose range covers the Chinese mainland. “India has broken the UN’s limits on its development of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missile,” the ruling Communist Party-run tabloid Global Times said in its editorial. With inputs from PTI