Posted on 09/15/2004 9:54:54 AM PDT by HAL9000
(ATTN: UPDATES with foreign diplomats' planned visit to explosion site)SEOUL, Sept. 15 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean satellite photographed the site of last week's massive explosion in North Korea on Wednesday but failed to find out what caused the blast, a state-run aerospace institute said.
Thursday's huge blast in the northern North Korean province of Yanggang prompted speculation that North Korea conducted a nuclear test. Pyongyang denied the allegation, saying the explosion was caused by a scheduled demolition of a mountain for a hydroelectric project.
"The Arirang No. 1 succeeded in taking a satellite picture of the explosion site as there were no clouds in the sky there from 10:59 a.m. to 11:01 a.m. when it passed the area, but it is difficult to read it," said Jeon Kap-ho, a researcher at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute.
Jeon cited the low resolution of an optical lens detached in the satellite and lack of topographical experts on the North Korean area as reasons the institute failed to read the satellite image.
The institute had tried to take satellite photos of the explosion site twice in the past week, but failed owing to heavy clouds, he added.
Earlier Wednesday, the South Korean intelligence agency said a mushroom-shaped cloud that coincided with the huge blast might have simply been a cloud, rather than the byproduct of a nuclear test.
"There is a possibility that (the cloud) was an unusual form of natural cloud, given the weather conditions there at the time, besides the possibility it was from blasting to build a hydroelectric power plant," the National Intelligence Service said in a report to the National Assembly.
Also on Wednesday, a state-run South Korean geological institute raised the possibility that the reports of an explosion were due to unclear satellite pictures.
"We have been looking into the records of seismic waves in the area to find signs of an explosion, but we haven't discovered any additional signs backing the claims of an explosion," the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources said.
To clear lingering suspicion on the nature of the blast, a group of foreign diplomats in Pyongyang are scheduled to visit the explosion site on Thursday, Britain's Ambassador to North Korea David Slinn said.
The rare visit comes three days after British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell, who was visiting Pyongyang asked North Korea to allow an access to the scene for an independent confirmation of the explosion.
Weekend reports of a huge explosion and a mushroom-shaped cloud in the isolated country last Thursday prompted global speculation that they were signs of a nuclear weapons test.
Officials in Seoul and Washington ruled out links with the North's nuclear weapons program.
North Korea dismissed the speculation as "a preposterous smear campaign" designed to "divert elsewhere the world's public attention focused on the nuclear-related issue of South Korea."
South Korea acknowledged over the past few weeks that its scientists had conducted experiments on a small amount of uranium in 2000 and extracted a small amount of plutonium in 1982. Uranium and plutonium are two key ingredients for producing nuclear weapons.
South Korea insisted that the experiments were purely for academic purposes, but suspicions have grown that they were linked to Seoul's ambitions to develop atomic weapons.
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