Big bang in the North, but not a nuclear test

JoongAng Daily ^ | 8-27-06

[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."

[jdm]

[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

[Hodar]

"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.

[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.

[rlmorel]

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

[ASA Vet]

MI Ping

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

Radar?

[cripplecreek]

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

[Fred Hayek]

Maybe they got a fizzle instead of a fission.

[johnny7]

"A lot of construction has reportedly been going on in Pangyo,"

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

[Thombo2]

Maybe it was an attempt to eliminate the chia boy?

[BenLurkin]

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

Not the first time

[NonValueAdded]

Azmat? Might that be the Aussie hazmat team?

[Alter Kaker]

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.

[BenLurkin]

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

[Godzilla]

This would make sense.

[johnny7]

Ooops... I was thinking a$$hat. ;)

[Hodar]

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.

[MindBender26]

>Fizzle?

Agree

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

[Boundless]

> 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".

[reg45]

Kim Jong Il and a bean burrito.