Inside India, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenals: Who has more, and what would happen if New Delhi, Islamabad unleash their nukes?
India news: The nuclear conflict could kill between 50 to 125 million people within a week, making it deadlier than the entirety of World War II. Paksitan
Tensions between India and Pakistan have sharply escalated after a deadly terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir. In response, Pakistan’s Railways Minister Hanif Abbasi has issued a warning to India, hinting at the possible use of nuclear weapons.
In a video now circulating widely online, Abbasi said, “If they (India) stop water, they should be ready for war. Ghori, Shaheen and Ghaznavi are not for display. We have kept them for India. We have not kept 130 atomic weapons for a showpiece. You don't know where they are located in Pakistan.”
His threat comes after India announced tough measures against Pakistan, including downgrading diplomatic ties, suspending the Indus Water Treaty, and shutting down the Attari land-transit post. These steps followed the terror attack in Pahalgam, where 26 people, mostly tourists, were killed, the deadliest attack since the 2019 Pulwama incident.
Pakistan, in retaliation, suspended the Simla Agreement, halted all trade, closed its airspace to Indian flights, and warned that any attempt to divert river waters would be treated as an act of war.
How many nuclear weapons do India and Pakistan have?
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According to the Federation of American Scientists, India’s nuclear arsenal slightly outnumbers Pakistan’s. As of January 2025, India had around 180 stored nuclear warheads, compared to Pakistan’s 170.
Globally, nine countries collectively hold around 12,331 nuclear warheads. Exact figures remain uncertain because most nuclear-armed nations keep their stockpiles secret.
What could an India-Pakistan nuclear war look like?
While the chances of war remain low, experts warn that a miscalculation could quickly turn a conventional conflict into a nuclear disaster. Recently declassified US intelligence documents from the 1980s and 1990s revealed that India could consider striking Pakistan’s nuclear facilities if it felt seriously threatened.
A joint study by the University of Colorado Boulder and Rutgers University outlined a grim scenario if a nuclear war broke out. It estimated that India and Pakistan could unleash about 250 nuclear warheads on each other’s cities, causing immediate deaths of at least 700,000 people.
But the devastation would not end there. Fires triggered by the blasts would inject around 80 billion pounds of black smoke into the Earth’s atmosphere, blocking sunlight and causing a severe drop in temperatures similar to conditions during the last Ice Age.
The nuclear conflict could kill between 50 to 125 million people within a week, making it deadlier than the entirety of World War II, and plunging the planet into a global climate catastrophe.
