North Korea said it successfully tested a powerful nuclear bomb even though experts voiced doubt the device set off by the isolated nation was as advanced as Pyongyang claimed.
While North Korea has a long history of voicing bellicose rhetoric against the United States and its Asian allies, the assertion by Pyongyang on Wednesday (January 6) that it had tested a hydrogen device, much more powerful than an atomic bomb, came as a surprise.
North Korea also said it was capable of miniaturising the H-bomb, in theory allowing it to be placed on a missile and potentially posing a new threat to the U.S. West Coast, South Korea and Japan.
“It is early to judge from the earthquake magnitude, however, it is hard to believe this is a real hydrogen bomb given the scale. But we can possibly say that it is a boosted fission bomb at the most,” said Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defence and Security Forum.
Joe Cirincione, a nuclear expert who is president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security organisation, tweeted: “I doubt DPRK exploded a real H-Bomb. More likely a “boosted” weapon with tritium added to increase the yield of a fission bomb.”
The USGS reported a 5.1 magnitude seismic event that South Korea said was 49 km (30 miles) from the Punggye-ri site where the North has conducted nuclear tests in the past.
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization in Vienna said preliminary data indicated that the magnitude of the seismic event detected in North Korea was lower than a similar one caused by a North Korean nuclear test in 2013. (Reuters)
