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Big bang in the North, but not a nuclear test
JoongAng Daily ^ | 8-27-06

Posted on 08/27/2006 7:28:21 AM PDT by jdm

A minor explosion caused a small man-made earthquake in North Korea on Friday, but it was not a nuclear test, the Korea Institute of Geoscience & Mineral Resources said. "At 4 p.m. on Friday, we sensed an artificial earthquake wave which seemed to originate from near Pangyo, in the North's Gangwon province, but it has absolutely nothing to do with a North Korean nuclear test," an official at the institute said in a telephone interview with the JoongAng Ilbo on Saturday. "If the North conducted a nuclear test, our center would have sensed an earthquake wave of a magnitude above 4.0 on the Richter scale. The earthquake's magnitude was around 2.0, which can be created when two tons of TNT are exploded," the official said.

He said such man-made earthquakes have occasionally occurred in the North. "A lot of construction has reportedly been going on in Pangyo," he said. The institute operates earthquake watch centers nationwide. Kang Il-bum, a researcher at the institute, said, "If North Korea had conducted a secret underground nuclear test, radars established by the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons would have detected it."


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: nknukes; northkorea; notanuketest

1 posted on 08/27/2006 7:28:22 AM PDT by jdm
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To: jdm

This must have been what was happening:

SEOUL, Aug. 27 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Sunday it conducted a large-scale blast operation two days ago for a waterway project.

The operation was carried out on Friday in a reservoir at Goksan county of Hwanghae province near the border with the South's Gangwon province, the North's Korean Central Broadcasting Station reported.

Source: http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20060827/430100000020060827225549E5.html


2 posted on 08/27/2006 7:31:32 AM PDT by jdm (I gotta give the Helen Thomas obsession a rest.)
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To: jdm
"A lot of construction has reportedly been going on in Pangyo,"

Yah, sure, you betcha. I can't tell you how often me and the boys haul 2 tons of TNT into a cave when we are trying to escavate some stumps out of the surrounding county.

Here's a hint.... we know North Korea is building a nuclear arsenal .... does a nuclear explosion have to be bigger than a 2.0 on the Ricter scale? Maybe they are testing the yield of smaller nuclear bombs? Make a small nuke, test the yield; then all you have to do is scale the data to make a big nuke.

3 posted on 08/27/2006 7:32:20 AM PDT by Hodar (With Rights, come Responsibilities. Don't assume one, without assuming the other.)
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To: jdm
2 tons of TNT exploded at the same time in the same place? I call BS that it's construction. Probably NK faking a nuke test.
4 posted on 08/27/2006 7:34:37 AM PDT by varyouga (I no longer fear death. I only fear the day when the DUmmies take over.)
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To: jdm

Good gosh. Beat me to it on the first post...


5 posted on 08/27/2006 7:37:59 AM PDT by rlmorel (Islamofacism: It is all fun and games until someone puts an eye out. Or chops off a head.)
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To: Alas Babylon!; American_Centurion; An.American.Expatriate; ASA.Ranger; ASA Vet; Atigun; ...
MI Ping

radars established by the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons would have detected it.

Radar?

6 posted on 08/27/2006 7:39:23 AM PDT by ASA Vet (Deliberate ignorance is a sad thing to witness.)
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To: jdm

If it were a nuke test, our govt. would be shouting it from the rooftops.


7 posted on 08/27/2006 7:40:13 AM PDT by cripplecreek (If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?)
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To: varyouga

Maybe they got a fizzle instead of a fission.


8 posted on 08/27/2006 7:41:03 AM PDT by Fred Hayek (Liberalism is a mental disorder)
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To: Hodar
"A lot of construction has reportedly been going on in Pangyo,"

“Azmat-suited contractors indicate another new daycare center being erected.”

9 posted on 08/27/2006 7:42:21 AM PDT by johnny7 (“And what's Fonzie like? Come on Yolanda... what's Fonzie like?!”)
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To: jdm

Maybe it was an attempt to eliminate the chia boy?


10 posted on 08/27/2006 7:51:26 AM PDT by Thombo2
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To: jdm; Hodar

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/09/12/nkorea.blast/

Not the first time


11 posted on 08/27/2006 7:53:29 AM PDT by BenLurkin ("The entire remedy is with the people." - W. H. Harrison)
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To: johnny7

Azmat? Might that be the Aussie hazmat team?


12 posted on 08/27/2006 7:55:02 AM PDT by NonValueAdded (Tom Gallagher - the anti-Crist [FL Governor, 2006 primary])
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To: jdm; Hodar; varyouga

Nuclear explosions have telltale seismic signatures which differentiate them from earthquakes. If N. Korea had detonated a device, believe me, we would know about it.


13 posted on 08/27/2006 7:57:43 AM PDT by Alter Kaker ("Whatever tears one sheds, in the end one always blows one's nose." - Heine)
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To: jdm

An who could forget . . . . http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,117872,00.html


14 posted on 08/27/2006 7:59:53 AM PDT by BenLurkin ("The entire remedy is with the people." - W. H. Harrison)
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To: jdm; TigerLikesRooster

This would make sense.


15 posted on 08/27/2006 8:02:53 AM PDT by Godzilla (Whats the use of hammering if there is no nail?)
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To: NonValueAdded
Ooops... I was thinking a$$hat. ;)
16 posted on 08/27/2006 8:03:05 AM PDT by johnny7 (“And what's Fonzie like? Come on Yolanda... what's Fonzie like?!”)
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To: Alter Kaker
Beg to differ here.

A TNT explosion 'should' look like an instantaneous impulse type of explosion; just like a nuke. From the article, it appears that the differentiation is made by the 'size' of the quake.

Granted, a natural earthquake starts off as tremors, followed by the actual quake, followed by aftershocks. You don't get the warnings with an explosion.

So, how do you differentiate a Nuke from nonnuclear explosion. Recall that Hiroshima was taken out by a Kiloton bomb, not a megaton behemoth we now stock pile.

If I wanted to take out vast areas, I could either work on a big Bertha (and get caught) or develop several hundred nuclear 2-Ton equivalent bombs and rain those down over an area. The smaller bombs would be harder to detect; my warhead could deliver hundreds of these smaller bombs; and the effect would wipe out a city, I'd just have a smaller crater.
17 posted on 08/27/2006 8:05:51 AM PDT by Hodar (With Rights, come Responsibilities. Don't assume one, without assuming the other.)
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To: Fred Hayek

>Fizzle?

Agree

Hardest part of nuc explosion is getting all the fisionable materiel to become involved before force of reaction blows it apart.


18 posted on 08/27/2006 8:05:56 AM PDT by MindBender26 (Having my own CAR-15 in RVN meant never having to say I was sorry....)
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To: varyouga

> Probably NK faking a nuke test.

Or PRK science slaves faking a nuclear orgasm for
Fearless Leader. If so, he won't be happy with these
foreign reports of "not nuke".


19 posted on 08/27/2006 8:06:00 AM PDT by Boundless (Imagine if Fox actually had a news channel)
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To: jdm

Kim Jong Il and a bean burrito.


20 posted on 08/27/2006 8:08:35 AM PDT by reg45
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To: varyouga

If there is a water project there it will easy to verify. Two tons is not a lot of explosives to use in construction or in a quarry site.

Or it could have been a nuclear "fizzle".


21 posted on 08/27/2006 8:13:24 AM PDT by BigBobber
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To: jdm
In preparation for a nuclear test, smaller explosions, with known shock wave characteristics, are set off in order to allow calibration of monitoring equipment.

Not saying that's it for sure, but it could be.

22 posted on 08/27/2006 8:17:03 AM PDT by MrNatural ("...You want the truth!?...")
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To: Boundless

Fearess reader needs to learn to fake an EM pulse to go along with his ground shanking.


23 posted on 08/27/2006 8:20:54 AM PDT by cripplecreek (If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?)
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To: ASA Vet

Dang it, ASA VET, there you go again ruining a perfectly scary and poorly written pr piece with an injection of truth via a question:

"radars established by the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons would have detected it.

Radar?


24 posted on 08/27/2006 8:26:07 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (There's a dwindling market for Marxist Homosexual Lunatic lies/wet dreams posing as news.)
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To: jdm

Maybe they were making a bigger underground chamber than what they had there, in order to better conduct the nuke test to follow.


25 posted on 08/27/2006 9:03:31 AM PDT by thoughtomator (There is no "Islamofascism" - there is only Islam)
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To: jdm

calibration test


26 posted on 08/27/2006 9:17:40 AM PDT by fso301
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To: varyouga

"2 tons of TNT exploded at the same time in the same place? I call BS that it's construction. Probably NK faking a nuke test."

More likely, IMHO, is that this was a live test of the "conventional" shaped charge trigger for a nuke.....or the construction is for the test facility....or they may even be telling the stone truth.

Even a complete "fizzle" would have enough of the characteristics of a nuke test to be detected as such.


27 posted on 08/27/2006 9:32:35 AM PDT by Unrepentant VN Vet (I can't really accept a welcome home until the last MIA does.)
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To: cripplecreek
"If it were a nuke test, our govt. would be shouting it from the rooftops."

This sounds like you might actually believe it. Don't be quite so sure....

28 posted on 08/28/2006 9:12:58 AM PDT by Lloyd227 (and may God bless Oriana Fallaci)
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To: Lloyd227

I hung up the foil helmet a long time ago.


29 posted on 08/28/2006 9:18:46 AM PDT by cripplecreek (If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?)
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