BEIJING (x) -- China, ignoring appeals for a moratorium on nuclear testing, flexed its muscles as a member of the world's nuclear-weapons club Friday by setting off its second test blast in four months.


The Australian Seismological Centre in Canberra recorded an explosion at China's underground nuclear testing facility of Lop Nor, in the western region of Xinjiang, of between 40 and 150 kilotons which registered between 6.1 and 6.3 on the open-ended Richter scale.


China's Foreign Ministry announced the underground explosion but gave no details of the test, which followed a similar one in June.


It repeated China's assertion that it exercised great restraint in testing and reaffirmed support for international efforts to ban nuclear weapons and to negotiate a comprehensive test ban treaty.


Russia and Kazakhstan led a chorus of international protests against the Chinese test.