North Korea Says It Has Conducted Nuclear Test

ScentCone writes "North Korea says that it has conducted its first nuclear weapons test and 'brought happiness to its people.' Japan and China earlier issued an unusual joint statement saying that such a test would be 'unacceptable.' As of 11:10PM EST, the USGS says that it has not detected any unusual seismic activity on the Korean peninsula in the last 48 hours." From the article: "The North said last week it would conduct a test, sparking regional concern and frantic diplomatic efforts aimed at dissuading Pyongyang from such a move. North Korea has long claimed to have nuclear weapons, but had never before performed a known test to prove its arsenal. The nuclear test was conducted at 10:36 a.m. (0136 GMT) in Hwaderi near Kilju city, Yonhap reported, citing defense officials." Update: 10/09 05:50 GMT by J : The U.S. Geological Survey reports a 4.2 magnitude quake; South Korean news is reporting a 3.58 magnitude event; the White House apparently confirms a nuclear test.

Comments

Confirmed

[sholde4]

According to MSNBC, USGS has just confirmed a 4.2 magnitude tremor at 10:30 am local time Monday.

Sizemography

[Anonymous Coward]

At this moment, US intel claims it "can't confirm" the event. However, US geologists apparently can. Transparency is a good thing, especially when it's not intended.

Re:Sizemography

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The US has or had satellites that can detect particle bursts from nuclear explosions. If such satellites are still in operation (though likely any current ones are generations improved from the originals), then the US intelligence system would know for certain.

As an aside, that type of satellite was the type that originally detected gamma ray bursts from billions of years ago and they were almost a total mystery until the last decade.

Update: Seismic info now confirms activity

[ScentCone]

USGS and other international players are now reporting 4.2 magnitude (Richter scale) tremor at the indicated time of the test. China says they got a 20-minute warning, which they passed along to the US and other western governments.

Looks like it will be a busy day in diplo-land, and a noisy day in pundit-land.

USGS Reports North Korean Nuke Test as 4.2 Quake

[pkkell0]

Seismic Data from North Korean underground Nuke test registers on USGS sensors as 4.2 mag quake http://bitterplace.homeip.net:8080/modules.php?nam e=News&file=article&sid=607&mode=&order=0&thold=0

Look at the seismic data. no spinning this one.

[macadamia_harold]

You can see the Seismic Data here.

And a global map indicating it here.

No denying that one.

map

[Heem]

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=41.311%C2%B0N%2C%201 29.114%C2%B0E&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&sa=N&tab=wl

Re:So what's the yeild amount?

[terrymr]

From here: a one killoton explosion is equivalent to about 4.0. Maybe it was just a butt load of dynamite and not nuclear at all.

tactical/sub-tactical range. 1-5kT roughly

[StandardDeviant]

This page (scroll down to the header "Seismic Energy") lists richter 4.0 as corresponding to 1kT and 4.5 as 5.1kT (richter is a log scale). So kind of a pissy sub-tactical range yield (i.e. nothing you'd want to be close to, but not a city killer either). For comparison's sake, Trinity, Fat Man, and Little Boy were all in the 12-22kT range.

No unusual seismic activity

[Jarden]

..my ass

Re:Take em now

[lexDysic]

North Korea (and most of these arguments apply to Iran equally well) isn't even on the same planet with sane. North Korea WILL eventually start another war. There isn't any doubt whether he has WMD anymore and he has the missles to deliver them.

You realize North Korea is a country and not a person, right? Assuming you are referring to Kim Jong-Il (or Ahmadinejad, or Chavez, or Hussein, or whomever you think it is most important to be scared of today) have you considered that maybe it requires just a little bit of sanity to remain in control of an entire country? There are other people who would like the job, after all. (Note: I'm not saying that any of these people are necessarily very smart, just that they all certainly prefer being in power to being dead.)

The most likely reasons for North Korea's developing of these weapons are self-defense and, more importantly, a negotiation chip to use towards stopping sanctions. All indications are that this is what's happening. (One sample analysis, written recently, is here.)

Confirmation of NKs nuclear capabilities reduces our diplomatic power over them slightly, since it makes the threat of a direct military attack by us on them slightly less credible. This is unfortunate, but not a reason to panic, and not a reason to initiate an attack which would certainly: (a) result in many innocent deaths, and (b) damage our relationships with countries that could affect the well-being of Americans. (Make no mistake, not even Great Britain would support us on this one).

This impending disaster could have been prevented just like WWII could have. Instead a billion will probably die.

The Bay of Pigs nuclear disaster could have been prevented it too, if only we'd have had the sense not to attack until it was absolutely necessary...oh wait, we did, and it was. Be thankful.

Your numbers don't seem quite right.

[abb3w]

If the North Koreans detonated a 10-30 kiloton device, several times 1013 neutrinos from it should have passed through Kamiokande.

Assuming it was a nuke, the chemical explosive component should be neglectable. According to Wikipedia, 1 kiloton-TNT is 4.184 TJ. According to a quick search (matching what I recall from NE301 a decade back), average fission energy yield is around 200 MeV per. This gives about 4E24 fissions. Assuming you get on the order of 1 antineutrino per, at a radius of 1000 km and assuming even sterradial distribution, gives on the order of 300 billion antineutrinos per fission.

Anyone who wants to find the detector capture efficiency and make a guess at its cross-sectional area is welcome to refine the numbers further. I have some sleep to not-get.

Most Important Data: Depth 0km

[IanDanforth]

A clear indication this wasn't natural.

-Ian

Re:If this is true

[Trailwalker]

MacArthur's Inchon landing was a good example of how to flank fixed lines.

Re:If this is true

[whereiseljefe]

Actually, sending in people you care deeply about tends to hamper you abilities to fight a war. Take for instance McClellan during the U.S. Civil War. Had he not been afraid to use the North's overwhelming numbers, McClellan would have ended the civil war much earlier than it did (it took Grant to realize that all he had to do was send wave after wave of troops and he would break Lee, despite the fact that McClellan was the only Northern commander that was near the intellectual level of General Lee).

That being said, what you are trying to say is it would be wrong for Bush to pull strings to keep his loved ones out of harms way, which if he does have anyone in the military (I smell an entire family tree of ivy league pussies... W's dad must feel greatly dissapointed) I have no doubt we would have done that.

As to your last part, I'm tired of that damned argument. These kids willingly joined the army, yes to pay for college, but they were told repeatedly and voluntarily swore an oath (no fucking fine print) that when the U.S. goes to war, they will probably have to ship off and if that is the case, there is nothing they can do about it. I feel little sympathy for these kids, I mean it sucks over there but you did sign up with the military, what did you expect? Why didn't you go for the National Guard, hmm? Your chances of being deployed over seas to hostile combat zone are dramatically reduced in that organization.

Re:Ask Rummy.

[SEE]

North Korea already had plutonium-producing reactors in 1994, which it claimed were for the purpose of making power. The deal was to sell them light-water reactors as replacements, because light-water reactors are not suitable for plutonium production without heavy modification, and have NK shut down and seal its plutonium reactors.

So what NK then did was start refining uranium to weapons-grade in centrifuges. In 2003, the U.S. officially asked them if they were doing this, and they announced they were. So the U.S. cancelled the shipment of the light-water reactors, because North Korea was building nukes anyway. That's right, the ABB reactors never made it to the DPRK.

Then, North Korea responded to this by breaching the seals on the plutonium-producing reactors, and started refining the plutonium.

So, to take your gun analogy and make it actually reflect the facts, let's assume a lunatic already has a fully-automatic AK-47, which they say they need to shoot crows that are eating their crops. The police come by, nod and smile, and convinces the lunatic to lock up the AK-47, and in exchange the police will give him a SuperSoaker to drive off the crows. The lunatic then starts making pipe bombs. A few days later, the former CEO of SuperSoaker has joined the police, and he comes by and asks the nut if he's making pipe bombs. The nut say yes, so the new officer tells him to stop it or he won't be given the SuperSoaker. In response, the nut unlocks his AK-47 and shoots off a few rounds.

You then come along, and accuse the owner/police officer of being responsible for the gunfire because he was CEO of the SuperSoaker manufacturer.

I guess when you have moral integrity, the only important facts are the ones that don't get in the way of your indignation.

Re:If this is true

[ray-auch]

Too easy, google for patriot missile downed gives:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2877349.stm

Yep, confirmed patriot kill, right at the top of the list. Way to go.

Inchon

[Anonymous Coward]

MacArthur's Inchon landing was a good example of how to flank fixed lines.

The Inchon landing was a gamble. It was a two phased operation that relied upon the speedy capture of the fortified island of Wolmi-do followed by a pause to wait for the tide to rise before the rest of the operation could continue which was not a good idea since there was no way to know if the island garrison would fall quickly and because the pause would give the forces ashore time to react. The Americans were lucky in several ways, firstly they only had to face some 3000 N-Korean troops who happened to have a commander of low quality, the garrison on Wolmi-do was under strength and didn't die where it stood to buy time for their comrades ashore and the local N-Korean commander didn't make any significant use of the forewarning and the time he had to react from the time the attack on Wolmi-do started and until tide rose and the rest of the American attack went ahead. An American present at the time commented that if the garrison on Wolmi-do had resisted more than it did to buy time and if the troops ashore had fought with the same determination as the German and Japanese troops he had encountered during WWII (and which the N-Koreans were fully capable of) the American forces at Inchon would have been slaughtered. Basically Inchon could *very* easily have become a compete FUBAR like operation 'Market Garden' did during WWII. It was a great success because fortune happened favor MacArthur that day but Inchon is hardly the best available study in how to plan and execute an amphibious landing, the allies set much better examples of that during WWII.

Re:Bush just entered an elite club

[althalus1969]

You must be delusional...

The guy leading the UN Inspection Team stepped down from office because of this scandal.
The UN Team found no evidence whatsoever of WMDs in Iraq.

Next time ask yourself where you get you information from, hopefully not Fox-News.

WMDs in the middle ages

[brennz]

10,000 longbows ~ hardly!

It is a well known fact that during the middle ages and before then, during an attack on a city, the sieging army would catapult into cities corpses with the plague, or dead animals, in attempts to spread disease/plague that would decimate populations.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/bioweapons/biowa r_timeline.html
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/xiongmn.h tml
http://www.usmedicine.com/column.cfm?columnID=109& issueID=46
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubonic_plague

Re:If this is true

[operagost]

I'm getting a little tired of this, the US is NOT AT WAR, it takes an act of concress to declare a war and such an act did not take place.

And I'm tired of ignoramuses saying that.

Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq

Re:If this is true

[J05H]

You only have half of it. Confucius is attributed to saying:

"May you live in interesting times and attract the Emperor's attention."

Makes much more sense like that.

Josh

Re:If this is true

[KH]

OK, the AC has some facts wrong.

Actually, the Japanese constitution (9th paragraph) states that the only use of armed forces can be for self defense. That said, there is a plethora of laws that forbid it from doing even that.

Here is the translation of Article 9 found at Wikipedia.

ARTICLE 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

That it allows Japan to have self defence forces is a rather forced interpretation.

The Japanese self decense army is under prepared, under staffed, and does not have the necessary equipment. We have no missiles. Our jet fighters were deliberately modified so that they don't have fuel tanks large enough to fly a round trip to Korea and back.

I'm not sure if F-15s and Mitsubishi F-2s cannot fly sorties to North Korea from Japanese bases, not that I see point in doing that. It does not seem F-15J/DJs were in any way modified to reduce their range, either. IIRC, the range of the F-15 became an issue in the parliament when its introduction was discussed. Also, now JASDF has tankers.

The old Model 66 assault rifle, when dis-assembled, broke down into 30-some odd parts, including some very small springs, which my brother says would be impossible to re-build in the field. People lose parts when undergoing re-build training in the baracks!

Type 64 (not 66) rifle may have been PIA to maintain, but current infantry weapon is Type 89. I don't think it's not much inferior to any modern assault rifle. And I highly doubt small differences in personal weapons are strategically that significant.

Even the high-mobility vehicles, the Japanese version of the Hummer HMMV (built by Toyota under the civilian model name Mega Cruiser), simply resembles the U.S. Hummer, but in reality is not even close in functionality.

It's not like HMMVs did not have major problems not having armours. Japan also brought light armoured vehicles to Iraq.

Overall, the parent post reads very much like a typical sentiment of a Japanese person living in Japan. The problem I see is that they are not exposed to international media and do not know how much self-perception is different from perception from outside. Most of the Japanese see China and South Korea as some sort of bullies who always mention and exaggerate what the Japanese did during the WWII. This must come as a great shock for the Chinese and South Koreans who are genuinely scared of the Japanese behaviour in the first half of the 20th century. Just like they see Japan as the victim during the WWII (another big surprise for those who are not Japanese), they still feel that they are isolated and have no friend.

There is also a sensationalism with regard to North Korea. There are some factions of nationalists in Japan who capitalize on the actions of North Korea. They tend to overhype the danger of North Korea. I find this very dangerous.

North Korea always seemed to be seeking for attention. They don't seem to like the fact that the US is paying more attention to Iran, or a south Korean becoming the general secretary of the UN. As long as they get attention, they seem happy. I also figure that anybody, including South Korea,