NKorea announces ‘successful’ nuclear test

North Korea on Monday tested a nuclear bomb many times more powerful than its first in 2006, angering governments worldwide and prompting an emergency session of the UN Security Council.

The North “successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defence in every way,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

“The current nuclear test was safely conducted on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology,” it said.

The force of the blast was between 10 and 20 kilotons, according to Russia’s defence ministry quoted by news agencies, vastly more than the estimated one-kiloton blast three years ago.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency said that based on recorded seismic activity, the energy level of the test was four times bigger than the last one.

Baek Seung-Joo of the Korea Institute for Defence Analyses told AFP that if rough estimates by some private analysts are right, “the power of the second blast is comparable to the bombs which hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

The Security Council, which sanctioned the North for its previous test, planned to meet Monday afternoon in New York, the Japanese UN mission said.

Western governments reacted angrily, as did the North’s closest neighbours South Korea and Japan.

AFP