North Korea’s Latest Nuclear Test Assumed to be the Strongest Yet
On Friday morning, North Korea carried out its fifth nuclear test and declared that they have a weapon light and small enough to be mounted atop a ballistic missile, according to a report from the KoreaJoongAng Daily.
The report also said that the latest nuclear test was approximated to have been twice as powerful as the fourth test in January. The weapon used on Friday was estimated to have a 10 kiloton yield, the total energy produced by a bomb. It was about four kilotons more than the one used in a nuclear test earlier this year.
A yield of 1 kiloton is the same as the force of 1,000 tons of TNT.
The North called the test success and said that it can now create a nuclear warhead that is light and small enough to be put on top of a ballistic missile and target "hostile forces."
In a statement released by North Korea's Nuclear Weapon Research Center on Friday, the officials said, "Through today's nuclear test, we have confirmed the powerful impact of a standardized nuclear warhead which will be mounted on a strategic ballistic rocket prepared by the strategic Hwasong artillery unit of the North Korean Army."
The initial sign that the North conducted another nuclear test was the detection of a tremor with a magnitude of about 5.0 by seismic research centers around the world.
A South Korean Defense Ministry official told reports on Friday that the military detected an artificial tremor with a 5.0 magnitude at around 9:30 in the morning at North Korea's Punggye-Ri nuclear site. It is the same site used for the previous nuclear underground tests of North Korea.
Kim Nam Wook, the Director of the Earthquake and Volcano Department of the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said, "The magnitude of the earthquake this time was 5.04, the largest ever done by the North, including its January test with 4.8 magnitude tremor. The origin of the blast was about 0.9 kilometers west of the origin of the January test and it is estimated that the blast occurred 700 meters underground."
