North Korea carried out its second nuclear test this year just hours after President Obama wrapped up his tour of Asia.
Pyongyang
confirmed it conducted a successful explosion which triggered a
5.3-magnitude 'artificial' earthquake in the country's north east.
The
reclusive country boasted about its growing nuclear arsenal on
state-controlled TV and said the test was in response to the strict
international sanctions imposed against it.
North Korea said it would continue to strengthen 'the quantity and quality' of its nuclear weapons.
It came just one day after Obama, speaking
in the Vietnamese city of Laos, said he will strive to reduce North
Korea's nuclear threat in his final months as president.
Obama
called for a further tightening of sanctions against Kim Jong Un after
the dictatorial leader fired three long range ballistic missiles this
week.
'We
are deeply disturbed by what's happened,' he said before calling on the
country's sole ally China to work with the US to eliminate the threat
it poses.
Obama
spoke to the leaders of Japan and South Korea and promised to ensure
that 'provocative actions from North Korea are met with serious
consequences', a spokesman said.
South
Korean President Park Geun-hye said the test as a clear violation of
security council resolutions and accused Kim of 'maniacal recklessness'.
North
Korea's state TV said the test 'examined and confirmed' features of a
nuclear warhead designed to be mounted on ballistic missiles.
It claimed there was no radioactive leakage or adverse environmental impact caused by the test.
The quake sparked by the nuclear bomb was between 5.0 and 5.3 on the Richter scale by various agencies.
The Yonhap news agency claimed that equated to a 10 kilotonne explosion - the country's biggest to date.
Hiroshima's 15 kilotonne blast obliterated five square miles of the city and killed around 100,000 people.
US, European and Chinese agencies all picked up the tremor at 12:30am GMT, at surface level.
The
earthquake was detected near the country's only nuclear testing site,
Punggye-ri, which has hosted all four of the country's confirmed nuclear
tests so far.
South
Korea's Defense Ministry said Friday it could not immediately confirm
the cause; the country's weather agency said it was analyzing the data.
But the US Geological Service and the China Earthquake Networks Center both reported a suspected 'explosion' in the area.
And
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a briefing in
Tokyo: 'We believe it's possible that North Korea carried out a nuclear
test.
'The meteorological agency detected seismic waves that are probably not from a natural earthquake.'
The quake
comes ahead of Friday's National Day, which celebrates the founding of
North Korea - a period in which the country usually flexes its military
muscles.
And there had been increased talk of a nuclear test after the US blacklisted Kim on July 6 for human rights abuses.
In
January this year, Kim Jong Un claimed to have detonated a hydrogen
bomb - which can be hundreds of times more powerful than nuclear devices
- at Punggye-ri.
But
the resulting 5.1-magnitude quake was too small to have come from such a
device, Lee Cheol Woo of South Korea's intelligence committee said at
the time.
That would suggest that whatever the origin of today's earthquake was, it wasn't a hydrogen bomb.
North
Korea is under an international ban on developing and testing nuclear
and missile technology - but has flouted that ban several times in the
past few years.
The country aims to develop a nuclear-armed missile that could reach the US mainland.
No comments:
Post a Comment