PEKING: Delighted shouts were heard in the streets of Peking despite the late hour when the news of the successful thermonuclear explosion was announced at 0130 local time on Tuesday [May 10 J.

A special edition of the newspaper `Jin Min Jih Pao`, distributed free in the centre of the capital, announced the event in red characters.

Near the Peking Hotel, where many diplomats and foreigners of special missions live, the Police and young people, given the task of informing the public, were heard shouting gleefully.

Announcing the successful test the `New China News Agency` said: `We solemnly declare once again that at no time and in no circumstances will China be the first to use nuclear weapons. The Chinese people sincerely hope that a nuclear war will never take place.

`We are deeply convinced that a nuclear war can be prevented provided that all the peaceloving people and countries work together and persevere in struggle.

The Agency recalled that at the time of China`s first and second nuclear bombs Peking had proposed a world summit conference to discuss nuclear prohibition. But, it said, the United States had continued to develop and mass produce nuclear weapons of various kinds.

In Washington, Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, said the Chinese test would have `the most serious ef fect` on the international situation.

There was doubt as to whether the explosion was of a beefed-up nuclear or a hydrogen bomb, but U.S. sources said China had in any case given irrefutable proof of the high degree of its technical nuclear capacity.-Agencies