Slashdot Mirror
Mushroom Cloud Reported Over North Korea
cbrocious writes "Yahoo! News is reporting a mushroom cloud over North Korea that occured on Thursday in Yanggang province near the border with China. 'The explosion in Kim Hyong Jik county blasted a crater big enough to be noticed by a satellite, the source said.'"
"there was no immediate indication that Thursday's reported explosion was linked to Pyongyang's efforts to develop nuclear weapons."
What was it then? Car crash? Natural gas explosion? Hmm..."no immediate indication." Bah!
I'm actually kind of surprised it took this long to hit the wires though....I mean, shouldn't we have picked it up and there been at least, a news report? Or some sort of acknowledgement of the situation by those in power........
I bet most of the Pacific Rim's probably up in arms over this-Especially the Chinese, TFA states it hit somewhere close to the China-North Korean border..... You'd think with something like that, either the Chinese would strike or raise hell along the diplomatic channels.....
Reminds me of those WWII era Civil Defense movies I saw once in a history class...You
know, the one with the turtle...
"Ok kids, what do we do when the bomb hits?"
"DUCK! AND COVER!"
-thewldisntenuff
My MythTV HowTo
~~~
Someone set us up the bomb!
Ah am not a crook! (\(-__-)/)
all of our troups are in Iraq.
- - - If the sun is a star, why can't I see it at night?
This probably isn't a nuclear detonation, since they would be instantly detected, due to the huge flash created. Back in the 80s, we had satellite technology to detect nuclear explosions. Don't you think we have it now?
got sig?
But the cloud was produced by MS word...
Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
How long can we ignore this crazy bastard, Kim Jong-il I mean? Are we gonna have to wait until he strikes oil?
-dameron
Those wacky North Koreans... at it again.
Nuclear Launch... Detected
....who looked at the title of this article, and wondered whether it was North Korea or the U.S. who dropped it?
Before you mod me funny, think, perhaps I was insightfully funny?
since there are no photos, how about the possibility that some ignorant reporter only knows the adjective "mushroom-shaped" when talking about clouds from explosives?
like the way all bad experiences are always "harrowing".
wondering why this isn't all over the news? Where are the pictures, reports, I mean if there is a chance this was nuclear in origin than it is A BIG DEAL. I certainly want to know what the hell is going on over there.
Something interesting to note. This took place on Thursday, 09 September. Two days ago. The news is only getting out now.
Anyone else think it quite remarkable that we live in an age where information travels at incredible speeds all over the world... but it took two days for the (at least mainstream) media to report this? Think about it. There are still places in the world where something equivalent to a small nuke can go off -- mushroom cloud and all -- and we don't NOTICE it right away.
It's kind of humbling.
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
Not really the news I wanted to hear. The last thing we need is that nutcase Kim Jong Il with nuclear-fucking-weapons! I was (and am) against the war in Iraq - Saddam never kept me up at night. Kim Jong Il, on the other hand, is a different story. This guy could be extremely dangerous. I can't really think of a good way to contain/eliminate him, but I'm thinking it would be a smart idea to do so before he starts LAUNCHING NUCLEAR FUCKING WEAPONS!
-=Memo to Bush=-
___________________
Wrong country, dude.
Electric Monkey Pants
Hey now, maybe it's a good mushroom cloud. You know, like umm... err... a cotton candy factory exploding. That wouldn't be too bad, right?
Here
The U.S. official said the cloud could be the result of a forest fire.
Damn, we must look stupid to gov't officials.
Cheers,
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
New York Times
Atomic Activity in North Korea Raises Concerns
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
September 12, 2004
http://tinyurl.com/5kb3d
WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 - President Bush and his top advisers have received intelligence reports in recent days describing a confusing series of actions by North Korea that some experts believe could indicate the country is preparing to conduct its first test explosion of a nuclear weapon, according to senior officials with access to the intelligence.
While the indications were viewed as serious enough to warrant a warning to the White House, American intelligence agencies appear divided about the significance of the new North Korean actions, much as they were about the evidence concerning Iraq's alleged weapons stockpiles.
Some analysts in agencies that were the most cautious about the Iraq findings have cautioned that they do not believe the activity detected in North Korea in the past three weeks is necessarily the harbinger of a test. A senior scientist who assesses nuclear intelligence says the new evidence "is not conclusive," but is potentially worrisome.
If successful, a test would end a debate that stretches back more than a decade over whether North Korea has a rudimentary arsenal, as it has boasted in recent years. Some analysts also fear that a test could change the balance of power in Asia, perhaps leading to a new nuclear arms race there.
In interviews on Friday and Saturday, senior officials were reluctant to provide many details of the new activities they have detected, but some of the information appears to have come from satellite intelligence.
One official with access to the intelligence called it "a series of indicators of increased activity that we believe would be associated with a test," saying that the "likelihood" of a North Korean test had risen significantly in just the past four weeks. It was that changed assessment that led to the decision to give an update to President Bush, the officials said.
The activities included the movement of materials around several suspected test sites, including one near a location where intelligence agencies reported last year that conventional explosives were being tested that could compress a plutonium core and set off a nuclear blast. But officials have not seen the classic indicators of preparations at a test site, in which cables are laid to measure an explosion in a deep test pit.
"I'm not sure you would see that in a country that has tunnels everywhere," said one senior official who has reviewed the data. Officials said if North Korea proceeded with a test, it would probably be with a plutonium bomb, perhaps one fabricated from the 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods that the North has boasted in the past few months have been reprocessed into bomb fuel.
A senior intelligence official noted Saturday that even if "they are doing something, it doesn't mean they will" conduct a test, noting that preparations that the North knew could be detected by the United States might be a scare tactic or negotiating tactic by the North Korean government.
Several officials speculated that the test, if it occurred, could be intended to influence the presidential election, though a senior military official said while "an election surprise" could be the motive, "I'm not sure what that would buy them."
While the intelligence community's experience in Iraq colors how it assesses threats in places like North Korea, the comparisons are inexact. Inspectors have seen and measured the raw material that the North could turn into bomb fuel; the only question is whether they have done so in the 20 months since arms inspectors were ousted. While Iraq denied it has weapons, the North boasts about them - perhaps too loudly, suggesting they may have less than they say.
On the other hand, the divisions within the administration over how to deal with North Korea mirrors some of the old debate about Iraq. Hard-l
Behind one these curtains is a weird, probably psychotic dictator with weapons of mass destruction? Can you guess which one?
A: Behind our curtain!
Patent: from Latin patere, to be open
All GPS satellites have detectors for a nuclear flash.
http://ares.redsword.com/GPS/old/sum_sat.htm
The doomsday threat doesn't work if the attacking party thinks they can take down the entire nuclear capacity of the state before the victim can respond. However, given that North Korea alreay claims to have nukes, demonstrating that they do does not make them any more likely to come under attack.
However, if this is a first weapons test, then they probably don't have very well developed nuclear weapons yet, and some governments might take a "its now or never" approach.
X-Has-Sig: yes
Besides, "mushroom-shaped" clouds form from all large explosions, not just nuclear ones. Set off a big bomb, and you suddenly generate a large amount of superheated gas in a pocket near the ground. This rises so rapidly that it generates vortices around its perimeter, and the rolling of these vortices draws up a column of smoke and explosion debris, forming the stem. Then when the rising gas reaches a higher altitude where it's just about as dense as the surrounding air, it spreads out, forming the cap.
A mushroom cloud could be from a nuke. It could also be from the explosion of a liquefied natural gas storage facility, or a MOAB, or cargo train filled with ANFO. It's not a tell-tale of anything other than a big explosion.
This CNN story claims that a US official suggests that the mushroom cloud might be caused by a forest fire. A little bit of physics knowledge [layman/common-sense] makes this suggestion laughable: a mushroom cloud is caused by a large amount of superheated gasses, concentrated and hot enough to rise miles into the atmosphere before dissipating enough to break the cap. Unless they have had a multi-year drought and a forest dense enough to flash to many thousand degrees C in a very short period of time, there's no possible way the mushroom cloud was created that way.
Now, it's entirely possible that it is not a mushroom cloud, as it sounds like all the indications of its presence so far are satellite shots. AFAIK very few, if any, satellites can shoot pictures at a sufficiently low angle to actually get enough outline to confirm a mushroom cloud. Basic physics again: too low and angle, you get a massively distored image because there's a) more air in the way, and b) angle of incidence causes wild refraction.
If anyone can elaborate on (or correct) these two issues, please comment. I'd be glad to be proven wrong in some way, as a verified nuclear N.Korea is not a good thing. However, what we know so far is not promising.
GStreamer - The only way to stream!
Are there any online seismometers that show this blast. A nuclear explosion would show one big spike, but large ordnance would show a series of smaller spikes.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
So, if the US goes into NK, we are pretty much going to go mano-a-mano with the PRC for domination of the globe. Neither the US or the PRC really want that. ... yet.
And don't, for a second, think that the US or the PRC really want to do that... ever.
This ain't the cold war. Our economies are so intertwined that a war between us would result in huge economic depressions, job losses, people going hungry, cats and dogs living together, etc.
Put it this way, if you lived during the cold war, you'd never pick up a piece of merchandise you bought from the store and see "Made in USSR" on the bottom. "Made in China" is farily common, last I checked....
134,000: Number of US troops sent to Iraq, to topple Saddam Hussein's regime, which had nothing to do with September 11th.
17,900: Number of US troops sent to Afghanistan, to hunt down Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, the people responsible for September 11th and other terrorist attacks against the US.
That give you an indication of what the Bush adminstrations priorities have been?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Here's the article.k orea.blast/
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/09/11/n
Paektu-san (Mount Paektu or White Head Mountain), is an extinct volcano and Korea's highest mountain (2,744 meters). It's located on North Korea's northern land border. It may have sprung violently back to life like North America's own Mount St. Helens.
Also, forest fires occur there with some regularity (more than 130 at once this summer), and can produce large white mushroom shaped clouds under the right atmospheric conditions.
Let's not jump to conclusions. Oh wait, this is Slashdot....
While I don't have a degree in geophysics, I wonder if the mushroom cloud was volcanic in nature? N. Korea *is* close enough to the ring of fire that it could, perhaps in a fluke, have experienced a volcanic eruption, resulting in both a crater, and a miles wide mushroom cloud.
If I remember correctly, Mt. St. Helens wasn't expected to erupt either, except by geophysicists, and in comparison was a relatively unprecedented event (being that the only volconoes to erupt in a US territory within recent history were in Hawaii).
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Well, that's just great, but North Korea isn't in Southeast Asia.
Wars are Gods way of teaching Americans geography.
The spike is at 16:10 UTC which would be 2:10 AM in Korea. The article says the explosion happened at 11:00 AM.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Don't you realize how advantageous it is to release this information on the anneversary of the twin towers attack?
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Of course we have a choice:
Would you like to play a game?
>list games
Ball
Global Thermonuclear War
>play Global Thermonuclear War
How about a nice game of Ball?
>No, I would like to play Global Thermonuclear War.
Very well...
Seriously though, of course we have a choice. We didn't cave in to the USSR, I don't expect us to give a cowtow to N. Korea. Seriously, expect a carrier battle group in the Sea of Japan ASAP if there isn't one there already. Expect half of the U.S. Navy including a dozen submarines loaded with 60 ICBM's each sitting off the coast of North Korea very soon. Oh, we'll be playing "ball" all right.
My other first post is car post.
Oh, for crying out loud! Everyone and his mom are speculating about "teh bomb". Consider the options in a rational manner, for once, please. Even if this is the /dot:
Possibility number 1: A nuclear explosion. If it was a nuclear explosion, remember that it happened close North Koreas's north eastern border with China. If that is the case, remember that the prevailing winds will blow the fallout either north or west, in which case the fallout will cross over into China, and you can bet your sweet apple pie that China will not take lightly to radioactive fallout from a neighbouring country, or the winds blow the fallout east in which case both Japan and Russia (Yes, George, Russia is just across the way over there) will raise living hell, or the winds blow the fallout south in which case South Korea gets to crap their collective pants. Either way, the international media will find out really fast about it.
2. It was an accident such as the one a few months ago, when a train laden with chemicals went up into the air. Given that NK is poor as hell and workplace safety not a major concern, this is the most likely cause. If this is the case, it is possible that it will take a long while until the media discover it.
3. It was a military accident at a missile site, where one exploding missile set off the rest, a la Chinese firecrackers. If this is the case, the NK's will probably try to keep it as secret as possible as it would be hugely embarrassing to the fuckers who routinely make huge boasts about their military and have this obsession with saving face.
From the BBC article: "A crater caused by the blast could be seen from a satellite, an unnamed official in Beijing was quoted by Yonhap as saying."
;)
Forest fires cause lots of damage, but generally they don't make huge craters visible from space.
That you have NO idea what the fuck happened over there. You are sitting in front of your computer, relying on third or fourth hand stories of the event. So trying to declare that you know which is true and false, at this point, is pretty stupid. I would also note that CNN is a considerable more credible news source than Yahoo news.
So, what really happened? Well, I dunno, but neither do you. If you assume that it was a nuclear blast, you are taking that on faith. There is little in the way of second hand confirmation and you sure as hell have NO first hand information.
So while I'm not saying that CNN isn't wrong, please let's lay off the bashing until there is more information.
> I suggest you better check you facts before you post.
Yes, quite.
It would suck, but it would only destroy two countries, not the entire world.
Yeah, it'd only be 150 million people dead if those two countries are leveled; just your average day. Not a doomsday scenario at all...
I think you underestimate the situation. Remember 9/11? Remember the US economy taking a royal crap over the loss of one building and a few thousand worker bees?
What do you think would happen if Japan, one of the world's most powerful economic engines, were destroyed or knocked out of play for a while?
"Suck" doesn't even begin to cover it. This isn't 1945. There are more ways to destroy a country than to blow stuff up. If Japan goes, I think you'll see lots of awfully bad stuff happen in the US and elsewhere.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
As a counter-weight to the continual cries of "diplomacy is useless!", consider the Cold War. The USA and the USSR didn't fight each other; all of their contact was (essentially) diplomacy. Yet the situation remained (relatively) peaceful, and eventually the danger went away.
During the so-called "Cold War" millions died in places like Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Angola, Guatemala, Nicauragua, Cuba, etc. over the course of decades as the "Superpowers" engaged in bloody and terrible warfare by proxy. You clearly need to re-read your history of the period.
If you and yours lived only 50 miles from the DMZ, I don't think you'd be spouting such nonsense.
As the poster above suggested, any move by the US would be met with decimation of the South Korean capital.
The North Koreans have enough artillery and incendiary weapons to make Seoul look like post WWII Dresden. Neither the US nor the South Koreans have enough weapons to destroy all those artillery positions before they've done their work. Yes, the US would eventually win. But it would take at least 1 to 3 months to fight North Korea to a standstill. Perhaps longer, as most of our forces are committed elsewhere.
You may be able to accept a few hundred thousand South Korean civilian casualties and the reduction of their capital to rubble. But it shouldn't come as a surprise that the South Koreans are not so anxious to risk that possibility. And that's just the conventional weapon threat. If the North managed to lob a single nuclear device towards the south, the casualties could run to millions.
I suggest you do your tough talking when it's the lives of your family on the line. In this case, the South Korean's have every right to drive the direction of these negotiations. It's their families only 50 miles away from the DMZ, not yours or mine.
No.
Vibrations through the earth travel at many kilometers per second, depending on density.
There'd be a delay (thats how you can triangulate earthquakes and such) but not in the order of 9 hours.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
A little history - In 1994 Clinton sent Carter to negotiate a treaty with North Korea. The North Koreans agreed not to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars of aid in the form of food and oil, and assistance in developing a "peaceful" nuclear program. The North Koreans then used their "peaceful" nuclear program with assistance from Abdul Qadeer Khan from Pakistan to develop their own nukes thus secretly breaking their agreement. North Korea also has an active missile programs and has conducted "test firings" of multi-stage missiles - shooting them over Japan. Japan is not very happy about this.
...) ...".
The U.S. with U.N. backing (the Soviet Union's UN ambassador had walked out - thus avoiding a veto) fought a war with the North Koreans in the 1950's. The war ended with an armistice in 1953 - not a peace treaty. North Korea has a 1.1 million man army out of a population of 22 million. They spend about 23% of their GDP on the military. The South Korean capital - Seoul is within easy artillery range of the North Korean border, and the North Koreans are believed to have a lot of hidden artillery in bunkers on the border. In the event of war, a lot of civilians in South Korea would die quickly. Finally, North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il is a wacko. While his people starve, he imports large quantities of large items for himself (he favors Hennessy cognac). He's had Japanese citizens kidnapped to teach the Japanese language to North Koreans spies . He's a movie nut (owns 20,000 films) and kidnapped a South Korean movie director to make films about himself.
China is North Korea's largest trade partner and patron. However, with China's economic boom - China now trades far more with South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. Nevertheless, China is still wary of Japan - remembering the horrors inflicted on China by the Japaneses during WWII. Since the war, Japan has become an economic rather than military power, and it's pacifistic constitution (written by the US) ensures that it will not again become a threat to it's neighbors.
A nuclear North Korea threatens the balance in the region. It is not in the interest of China for South Korea to develop it's own nukes. It is not in the interest of anyone for the Japanese to develop nukes to counter the threat of nuclear armed missiles from North Korea. China's real nightmare - is if the region starts a nuclear arms race and Taiwan goes nuclear.
So, the choices are as follows:
1) Cut a deal similar to the 1994 Carter deal that the North Koreans violated (fool me once
2) Attack North Korea and risk immediate massive civilian casualties in South Korea.
3) Drag China into the negotiations with North Korea and convince them to "curb your dog".
4) Close our eyes, put our fingers in our ears and shout "La La La La La
Personally, I think the only viable answer is number three - and that's what we're doing.
[Insert pithy quote here]
pictures speak a 1000 words
ex 1
ex 2
you can find 100's of recountings of forest fires that have mushroom clouds
The 2 AM seismic event is strongest at KIS. That's located in the middle of the south shore of Japan (Chugoku-Shikoku area). It also shows up strong on the north/south motion graph (first graph is up/down).
Check the previous days, there's plenty of spikes. It's just a damn earthquake in Japan.
He's either whacked or really, really different - I vote for the former.
..........FULL STOP.
I live here, so I pray to God it wasn't a nuke.
Gov't Confirms 'Non-Nuclear' N. Korean Explosion
It was reported that there was a massive explosion Thursday around the town of Yongjo-ri, Kim Hyong-jik County, Ryanggang Province. U.S. Department of State, sources familiar with North Korea and the Korean government all confirmed the explosion. A high-ranking government official said Sunday, It is true that a large mushroom cloud about 3.5 to 4 km in diameter was observed by a satellite at around 11:00 a.m. Thursday. It was not a nuclear test, but the explosion seemed to be three times bigger than the one that took place during the Ryongchon Station accident,± and added, Both U.S. and Korean intelligence authorities are investigating what caused the explosion.±
Chong Wa Dae Spokesman Kim Jong-min said, We noticed the explosion right after it took place and reported it to the president in writing during a National Security Council meeting. But we cannot decide the nature of the accident yet.±
The accident took place in a mountainous region 1,500 meter above sea level around Yongjo-ri, where it is known that there were many munitions factories nearby. In particular, the exact spot of explosion is only 10km away southwest from the Yongjo-ri base for Rodong 1 and 2 missiles and some 30km away from the Sino-Korean border.
There is much talk about the cause of the explosion. The government official said, If a nuclear test causes an explosion, we can detect it by reading satellite data. Thus, the recent explosion in North Korea was not caused by a nuclear test.± The intelligence authorities assume that an ammunition depot with over 1,000 tons of dynamite or an ammunition car may have exploded, or there may have been a chain explosion of chemical material or a big fire. Some Chinese sources argue that a massive explosion took pace in a munitions factory. Hong Sun-jik, director at the Hyundai Economic Institute said, Other than the assumption that it may be a simple accident that took place due to old facilities, we cannot exclude the possibility that the explosion may have taken place due to the lack of control of the Kim Jong-il regime, or it may have been connected to a secret feud over the successor of Kim Jong-il following the rumor of death of Kims wife, Ko Young-hee.±
Also, some strongly argue that it is not a simple accident because it took place on Sept.9, the Norths foundation day, which is considered a very important national holiday. Others argue that with Koreas nuclear experiments in the past at issue in the international community, it could be a false explosion by North Korea to intensify the Koreas nuclear issue. In other words, the North intentionally caused the explosion to deliver a message to the international community.
The government official said, We will be able to know the exact cause only after North Korea makes an official statement or intelligence authorities announces the results of their analysis.±
(Choi Byung-mook, bmchoi@chosun.com )
The US tested many sub-kiloton devices.
I suggest as a minimum reading a bool called the Curve of Binding Energy... I'm pretty sure its got a chapter talking about Ted Taylor's efforts to build micro-yield devices.
Either way, your comment is completely wrong. Its far more complicated to created small yield devices, but not even remotely impossible. Its extremely unlikely that North Korea did that, though. While creating a nuclear detonation is simple given enough raw fissionable material (US and Russia both had no failed tests with primitive technology until we started pushing the envelope for smaller and smaller explosions), creating micro-yield explosions is, and the details is one of the closest kept nuclear secrets in the US.
We've had smaller nukes than that since the late 1950's. Our AIM-26A and AIR-2A air to air missiles typically had 1.5 nuclear warheads. Some of these had the even smaller 0.25 KT warheads.
More Info:
http://www.milnet.com/aamtab.htm
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/arm/arm16.htm
http://www.hill.af.mil/museum/photos/coldwar/genie .htm
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
Not impossible, just hard. To be fair, I'd call it impossible for N. Korea to construct a 5Kt weapon given their lack of experiance in the subject matter.
With sophisticated facilities, extensive work done in neutron reflectors and fission enhancing substances (Tritium for example), it would be possible to construct such a weapon.
Think of it this way, the Manhattan project wasn't interested in a target yeild, they just wanted to make the concept work. All three of their first generation nukes tipped the scales around 15-20 kt. For all intents and purposes, it's fair to assume that 15-20 kt is the default size of your average nuke unless you engineer it differently. If N. Korea is trying to build the "lets see if this works" nuke, it's likely going to fall into that range.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Someone else already pointed out that NK has not signed the non proliferation treaty, but that I think is the least of your problems.
Simply put: pre-emption is a euphamism for aggression.
First of all you're right about them selling nuclear material, but blowing them up isn't the right answer. What is? I don't know for sure, I'm not an expert, but economic incentives and disincentives would be a good start. When GWB came into office all he offered was the stick. Remember that? No carrot. He doesn't deal with evil. (Well, until reality intruded and he had to). In addition to that inspections would seem to be viable.
They seemed to be working in Iraq, unless of course you've got some other agenda.
As for Reagan, I don't by the Fox Wisdom stating that Reagon spending this country to death brought down the soviet union. It's not that simple. It seems to me that it was a combination of corruption and social pressure and inept government that brought down the soviet union. There's probably a lesson there for us as well.
But lets translate the behavior you propose into everyday life:Let's say your walking down a street and see some thug looking at you in a menacing way. Let's even say you notice he's packing. Do you pull out a gun and shoot him before he does anything? You probably don't because it's illegal, antisocial and brings you to the same level of the person you're afraid of.
A better quesstion for you and all the warmongers in this country is do you wish you could? Is it your greatest fantasy to just blow everything up, to kill it all and stand above the mess?
My direct message to GWB: Fear and hatred are not viable foreign policies. The number of people who wish to kill americans will only increase if we continue to behave like scared bullies.
But the rest of the worlds opinion is not the most important reason to change our foreign policy. The most important reason is because it is wrong, immoral and counterproductive. But then again I don't expect the foreign policy of GWB to be much different than his domestic policy or anything else in his life.
Most fundamentally the problem with pre-emptive action is that you simply don't know what can happen. And killing thousands of other people, both your own citizenry and those of another countries, is too expensive of a price to pay.
You're wrong. Do a bit of web browsing about the threat of nuclear terrorism sometime. Try this paper for a start. What you're missing is that there is another critical factor determining the efficiency -- for what time period the assembly is critical. A group with limited resources trying to build a nuclear bomb for the first time is likely to aim for a device with a minimum of technical sophistication. This means one of two designs, corresponding to the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One was the "gun design," so named because a slug of uranium is shot into another subcritical mass of uranium. The other is the "implosion design," where a hollow sphere of plutonium is surrounded by shaped charges of convential explosive, which when detonated compress the plutonium into a super-critical density. The problem with these designs is that if you do a shoddy job building the thing, the nuclear chain reaction will take off when the fissionable material is only partway to the final "assembled" state. Then most likely the nuclear explosion blasts the parts back apart before they ever reach the final assembled state, and this flying apart of the material makes things subcritical again before much of the nuclear energy is released. This can lead to arbitrarily small yields. This is particularly likely (or maybe almost inevitable) if a bomb is built with the less-refined "reactor grade" materials as opposed to the more-refined "weapons grade" materials. The less-refined material has a far greater proportion of undesirable isotopes which randomly decay releasing extra neutrons which will start the chain reaction before the optimal stage of assembly.
They probably buried to much kimchee together and it reached critical mass. Rotting cabbage in an enclosed container produces highly explosive gasses. And when you bury them in a collective farm they usually pack them too close together. Then blammo. An enourmous cabbage cloud, not mushroom cloud, shoots skyward. I do understand that any kimchee that survives the inferno is pretty tasty.
Thank God they didn't do that on the Moon or it we would have lost it.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"