North Korea said it successfully conducted its sixth nuclear test Sunday and the secretive state’s mountainous test site may be at risk of collapsing, releasing “many bad things,” a Chinese scientist warns.
The latest test was said to have been a hydrogen bomb designed to be mounted on a newly developed intercontinental ballistic missile that has “great destructive power,” state media said Sunday.
North Korea’s announcement came just hours after a large earthquake was detected near the country’s only known nuclear test site in the mountainous region of North Hamgyong province.
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Kim Jong Un and his regime are believed to have carried out at least five of the country’s nuke tests at the same Punggye-ri test site, prompting a Chinese scientist to warn the next test could collapse the mountain resulting in a massive radiation leak.
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Speaking with the South China Morning Post, Wang Naiyan of the China Institute of Atomic Energy said if such a collapse should happen, it would pose a radiation threat to both North Korea and regions of bordering China.
“We call it ‘taking the roof off,”’ Naiyan told the newspaper. “If the mountain collapses and the hole is exposed, it will let out many bad things.”
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recorded a seismic event measuring 6.3 in magnitude.
As U.S.-based North Korean watchdog 38 North points out, a smaller 4.1 magnitude event was recorded about eight and half minutes later, suggesting a structural collapse of sorts.
“Among the possibilities for such an event the USGS proffered that it was a post-test ‘tunnel collapse,’ but it could also have been a ‘chimney collapse,’ caused by the area above the test cavity collapsing downward forming an upward shifting cavity known as a chimney,” the watchdog noted in blog post.
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38 North also noted the smaller event could have been a “landslide or other earth movement induced by the large test.” The watchdog added that “such a post-test event of this magnitude increases the likelihood” of the release of radiation.
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According to Reuters news agency, China’s Nuclear Safety Administration said on Monday no radioactive particles were detected along its border with North Korea.
Naiyan explained to the South China Morning Post that because of North Korea’s limited land area, the country doesn’t have many options for hosting a nuclear test site. Depending on how and where the bombs are placed within the mountain may determine how much longer it can hold up to another test.
“If the bombs were planted at the bottom of vertically drilled tunnels, the explosion would do less damage,” Naiyan told the newspaper.
Naiyan noted that vertical tunnels were more expensive and difficult to build, so boring horizontal tunnels into the mountain would be easier but increases the risk of blowing off the mountain top.
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“A 100 kiloton bomb is a relatively large bomb. The North Korean government should stop the tests as they pose a huge threat not only to North Korea but to other countries, especially China,” Naiyan told the newspaper.
It’s unclear the size of the bomb North Korea detonated Sunday. According to Japan’s defense minister, the test could have been in the range of a 70-kiloton bomb.
-With a file from the Associated Press.
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