The blast took place two days ago

May 27, 2009 22:31 GMT  ·  By

On May 25th, seismographs in Japan picked up shock waves traveling through the Earth's crust, similar to those created by a nuclear explosion. Mounting pieces of evidence pointed at the fact that North Korea again tested such a device on its own territory, suspicions that were confirmed when Pyongyang substantiated the international allegations, and admitted to running the country's second such test in history. The main issue here is not that other countries could not foresee the tests, but that the rouge nation showed that it had what it took to handle any external threats. The political and economical implications of the explosion will take a long time to analyze, expert say.

The test was conducted at 09:55 local time, the Japanese crust observatories in the Shimane and Tottori prefectures reported. At that time, their instruments recorded shock waves in the ground consistent with previously recorded “signatures” coming from similar tests. With North Korea confirming the test, the western world now knows that this is the second instance in which the Communist nation detonates an atomic weapon. Over the past few years, NK has come under increased sanctions form the UN, and has refused IAEA officials the permission to inspect its factories.

Japanese officials who analyzed the data recorded at the two locations determined that the type and intensity of the shock waves was consistent with the explosion of a few thousand tonnes of TNT. But, according to weapons experts, it would appear that the nuclear device used may have been a “fizzle.” This means that it was unable to trigger a complete chain reaction inside all of the bomb's nuclear fuel. While most countries who developed the atomic weapon got a 16 kiloton yield on their first attempt, the explosion in North Korea was estimated to be at around 4. However, analysts say that the regime may have aimed for a smaller explosion on purpose.

At first, some experts believed that the tests were conducted with conventional explosives, detonated all at the same time. “To me, a chemical explosion on the order of a few thousand tonnes, with all the stuff detonated at all the same instant, is not a credible scenario,” Columbia University in New York (CUNY) Seismologist Paul Richards said, quoted by Nature News. He concluded by adding that the blast was simply too large to have come from conventional explosive devices.