South Korea’s Yonhap news agency says Seoul believes North Korea has conducted its fifth nuclear test explosion. Previous artificial earthquakes in the same area and of the magnitude have all been due to nuclear tests. Alongside the nuclear test, the North Korean military has sent a number of projectiles and missiles into the sea since March and kept up its anti-American and anti-South Korean rhetoric.
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South Korea’s military has estimated the test’s explosive power was the equivalent of 10,000 tonnes of TNT, with President Park Geun-hye condemning Kim Jong-un’s “maniacal recklessness”.
In the hours following the seismic activity, Japanese and South Korean authorities said that they believed the explosion that caused the natural disaster was the result of a nuclear test.
The test will send tensions soaring over the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile ambitions, which have already earned worldwide condemnation and United Nations sanctions. On Monday, it fired three medium-range missiles during a G20 summit in neighbouring China that was attended by Obama and other world leaders. “As president of the Security Council we expect to convene a meeting in response to the test shortly”.
The blast was reported to have occurred at a depth of zero kilometers in the vicinity of the Punggye-ri test site, suggesting the country has carried out its fifth nuclear test.
The most recent of North Korea’s previous four nuclear tests was in January, in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and despite warnings from the global community.
“Sanctions have already been imposed on nearly everything possible, so the policy is at an impasse”, said Tadashi Kimiya, a University of Tokyo professor specialising in Korean issues.
The explosions put the region on edge.
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization also says that the test, if confirmed, “constitutes yet another breach of the universally accepted norm against nuclear testing; a norm that has been respected by 183 countries since 1996”.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that “artificial seismic waves” from a quake measuring 5.0 were detected near the Punggye-ri test site, and officials were analyzing whether it was a nuclear test.
“That’s the largest DPRK test to date, 20-30kt, at least”.
North Korea says it will continue to take efforts to strengthen the quantity and quality of its nuclear weapons.
“The important thing is that five tests in, they now have a lot of nuclear test experience”. Everyone is against North Korea’s nuclear threat.
The meteorological agency detected a magnitude 5.3 shaking in North Korea, near the country’s nulear test facility.
China said Friday it “firmly opposes” the test but it has limited room to manoeuvre, given its priority is to avoid a collapse of the regime that would create a crisis on its border and shift the balance of power on the Korean peninsula towards the US. “We are monitoring and continuing to assess the situation in close coordination with our regional partners”, an NSC statement said.
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Just before the natural disaster was detected, North Korea analysts at 38 North website said that satellite imagery showed movement around the underground test site, with mining carts visible and a new building erected near one portal.
