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BBC: Tremor is detected in North Korea (up: nuclear test conducted)

mid83

Member
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41139445

US seismologists said the 6.3 magnitude quake in the north-east of the country was a "possible explosion".

South Korea immediately convened a national security council meeting.

The tremor comes hours after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was pictured with what state media said was a new type of hydrogen bomb.

State media said the device could be loaded on to a ballistic missile. Neither claim could be independently verified.

South Korea officials said the quake took place in Kilju County, where the North's Punggye-ri nuclear test site is situated.

China's Earthquake Administration described the tremor as a "suspected explosion".

Initial reports from the US Geological Survey put the tremor at 5.6 magnitude with a depth of 10km (six miles) but this was later changed to 6.3 magnitude at 0km.

North Korea carried out its last nuclear test in September last year. It has defied UN sanctions and international pressure to develop nuclear weapons and to test missiles which could potentially reach the mainland US.

A series of recent missile tests has caused growing international unease.

In a report on Sunday, the North's state news agency KCNA said Kim Jong-un had visited scientists at the nuclear weapons institute and "guided the work for nuclear weaponisation".

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/north-korea-apparently-conducts-another-nuclear-test-south-korea-says/2017/09/03/7bce3ff6-905b-11e7-8df5-c2e5cf46c1e2_story.html?deferJs=true&hpid=hp_no-name_no-name%3Apage%2Fbreaking-news-bar&outputType=default-article&tid=a_breakingnews&utm_term=.c9c27199d5bf

North Korea appears to have conducted another nuclear test, the South Korean government said Sunday after seismic authorities detected an artificial earthquake near Pyongyang regime's known nuclear test site.

This would be North Korea's sixth nuclear test, and the first since President Trump was inaugurated. The action probably will increase already high tensions between the Trump administration and Kim Jong Un's regime.

The U.S Geological Survey said it had recorded a 6.3 magnitude earthquake exactly at noon Sunday local time, near North Korea's known nuclear test site in the country's northeast region. North Korea's recent nuclear tests have also happened exactly on the hour.

Edit: I changed the 2nd link to the Washington Post as the NYTimes link hadn't updated the magnitude of the tremor and I didn't want to post conflicting info.
 

brian577

Banned
2d7.jpg
 

kmfdmpig

Member
Yo China.

You wanna come get your boy?

China will continue to turn a blind eye to North Korea while speaking in platitudes about the importance of calm, blah blah blah. They only really get mad when sanctions negatively effect them. Hoping for China to be productive when it comes to North Korea is likely to lead to disappointment.
 
It's like watching a car crash in slow motion.

This is all heading towards a inevitable mess and I honestly don't know what a realistic best case scenario could be.
 

low-G

Member
If it was less than a ~6.5 Richter scale and they were trying for a hydrogen test, it looks like they've failed. The low yield hydrogen bomb tests done all did high 6 low 7 on Richter.

The most accurate so far I've seen is 5.3 which would mean somewhat more powerful than their previous dozen kiloton scale nuke tests.
 

Bulk_Rate

Member
The missile/nuke scholars on Twitter stress that its early but some sensors are reporting measurements in line with a Thermonuclear range yield, 100s of KT vs 10s
 

Extollere

Sucks at poetry
Aren't they just rolling the dice at this point? I mean, no one doubts that Trump bluffs, and bluffs often... but he's also an obvious wild card. When he says "fire and fury", there's an unspoken understanding among most people that he's just as liable to make good on his promise, given what he's said on record, his temperament, and the general notion that Republican politicians tend to increase their favorability during war time. Does NK not have a great understanding of who Donald Trump is as a person, or do they see him as a powerless joke? If it were me, I wouldn't be rolling the dice with him in office, it feels like a gamble with bad odds...
 

Syder

Member
You know, the irony would be during one of their tests if they accidentally blew themselves up.
I think about this a lot. Also, them accidentally blowing up another country, like the missile that flew over Japan. What if it failed and landed on sovereign territory? ...or worse, a city?
 

clemenx

Banned
The year is 2030. The whole Korean peninsula is a barren nuclear wasteland. Internet posters still insist that this is just posturing and dickwaving.
 

DarkKyo

Member
Oh I'm so scared. They'll be irradiating their own dirt for the next decade when they could be tackling their bigger issues that are actually the reason nobody respects or takes them seriously. They're a punchline.
 
What about making a UN coalition with the amendment to strike very hard and immediate at NKs military target, supplylines and non-civilian infrastructure? Knee their weapons capabillities and try and force the collapse from within.

Waiting will only make it many times more dangerous. If you have to think about the lowest loss of life, you'd have to conclude that time is running out, and waiting until they have nukes that can hit seoul, is a non-option.
 

marrec

Banned
If it was less than a ~6.5 Richter scale and they were trying for a hydrogen test, it looks like they've failed. The low yield hydrogen bomb tests done all did high 6 low 7 on Richter.

The most accurate so far I've seen is 5.3 which would mean somewhat more powerful than their previous dozen kiloton scale nuke tests.

I was gunna say, 5.3 is too low for a hydrogen bomb :shrug_emoji:
 

epmode

Member
What about making a UN coalition with the amendment to strike very hard and immediate at NKs military target, supplylines and non-civilian infrastructure? Knee their weapons capabillities and try and force the collapse from within.

Waiting will only make it many times more dangerous. If you have to think about the lowest loss of life, you'd have to conclude that time is running out, and waiting until they have nukes that can hit seoul, is a non-option.

Man, Seoul is gone even without nuclear weapons.
 
I think about this a lot. Also, them accidentally blowing up another country, like the missile that flew over Japan. What if it failed and landed on sovereign territory? ...or worse, a city?
They don't actually load their test missiles with live warheads.
 

brian577

Banned
What about making a UN coalition with the amendment to strike very hard and immediate at NKs military target, supplylines and non-civilian infrastructure? Knee their weapons capabillities and try and force the collapse from within.

Waiting will only make it many times more dangerous. If you have to think about the lowest loss of life, you'd have to conclude that time is running out, and waiting until they have nukes that can hit seoul, is a non-option.

That ship has sailed. And they don't nukes to wipe out Seoul, they have plenty of chemical and biological weapons that can be just an effective at killing people
 

Shauni

Member
What about making a UN coalition with the amendment to strike very hard and immediate at NKs military target, supplylines and non-civilian infrastructure? Knee their weapons capabillities and try and force the collapse from within.

Waiting will only make it many times more dangerous. If you have to think about the lowest loss of life, you'd have to conclude that time is running out, and waiting until they have nukes that can hit seoul, is a non-option.

They have enough artillery to reduce Seoul to rubble right now without nukes. Even in an incredibly coordinated strike like you propose, you still run a huge, huge risk of at least some of that going through even if you manage to destroy everything else.
 

sazzy

Member
Manu Raju @mkraju
Trump 8/22 on Kim: "I believe he is starting to respect us"
North Korea 8/29: Fires missile over Japan
N.K. 9/3: Possible NUCLEAR test
 
The implacable logic of nuclear deterrence is you must demonstrate it so there is no doubt that it works.

Bannon has left the whitehouse hopefully the generals who have trump in house detention are of a similar mind: that there is no way to militarily damage his nuclear program without South Korea getting flattened with artillery. Even if it was just South Korea suffering the stock markets would tank and that's a subject close to trumps heart.
 

shem935

Banned
As opposed to what? Thinking it's a big joke? Some of you don't take this seriously enough.

The fundamental dynamic doesn't change. I haven't made the threat out to be a joke in the past and I'm not doing that now. But you aren't dying in the next 5 minutes.
 

Shauni

Member
The implacable logic of nuclear deterrence is you must demonstrate it so there is no doubt that it works.

Bannon has left the whitehouse hopefully the generals who have trump in house detention are of a similar mind: that there is no way to militarily damage his nuclear program without South Korea getting flattened with artillery. Even if it was just South Korea suffering the stock markets would tank and that's a subject close to trumps heart.

Among all of this, Trump is apparently seriously thinking of ending the trade agreements we have with SK and potentially starting a trade war with them. I don't think he understands or cares about any of that.
 
apparently there has been another test at 0 depth

is what i am hearing on twitter

take it with a grain of salt likely all these stuff will converge to one thing (like the missile that flew by japan being one that broke apart rather then it being three separate ones)
 

epmode

Member
I love that this is always the response. No I don't have any bright fucking ideas and I wish I did. Waiting around doesn't seem to be working, that's all I know.

There are lots of bad solutions. As far as I'm concerned, military options were off the table once they deployed their nuclear weapons. Gotta work with China and hash out some kind of diplomatic solution. America may have to make concessions with regards to the bases in South Korea.
 

brian577

Banned
The fundamental dynamic doesn't change. I haven't made the threat out to be a joke in the past and I'm not doing that now. But you aren't dying in the next 5 minutes.

Maybe not, but a week from now? A month? NK has been in rapid fire mode for most of this year. Things aren't going to get better, they're going to worse and fast.
 
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