"With the carrying out of nuclear tests by Pakistan, there is now a real danger of some of the nuclear technology and weapons finding their way to rogue states like Iran and Iraq," said John Alridge, an eminent nuclear expert here.

He said the "danger" was particularly more grave given the fact that "Pakistan houses mushrooming terrorist outfits, including Harkat-ul Ansar, with international terror agenda."

"There is a real danger that some day the West may wake up to realise nuclear technology having passed on to these terrorist groups," Alridge said.

He urged the United States and other Western countries to "come up with some bold strategy to ensure that nuclear technology and expertise remained in safe hands".

Meanwhile, Alridge and another nuclear expert, Dr Paul Beaver, said preliminary evidence had indicated that nuclear explosions carriedout yesterday were of "fission devices".

"The Pakistan tests recorded five on an open-ended Richter scale indicating they are fission devices and that the country though capable of making atomic bombs was still two to three years away from deploying nuclear warheads for missiles," the duo said.

Alridge said Pakistan nuclear tests were clear sign that the country had been carrying out nuclear activity clandestinely for a number of years.Beaver said the full technical details of the Pakistani nuclear test would be unravelled in the next 24 hours as they had been tracked by both the Russian as well as American spy satellites.

Besides this, the old Soviet ground nuclear monitoring stations in central Asia, taken over by Germany recently, would also have the full data, he said.According to reports here, large number of seismic observatories in Europe, including the biggest one in Upsala in Sweden, and others in Britain, Germany and France have recorded the first two Pakistani nuclear explosions.The otherthree were too trivial and did not show up in measuring instruments, the reports said.

Bank Closure: Hours after announcing successful testing of five nuclear devices, the central State Bank of Pakistan ordered closure of all banks for public dealings.

An official statement said employees of various banks, were, however, asked to report for work as usual. Financial experts said the move appeared to be an attempt to pre-empt a run on the banks, the foreign currency accounts in particular, following imposition of sanctions on Pakistan.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a televised speech that Pakistanis would have to take to austerity and hard work to rid the country of dependence on foreign loans and grants, estimated to be over three billion dollars annually.