'Artificial' earthquake detected in North Korea may be nuclear test

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/artificial-earthquake-detected-in-north-korea-may-be-nuclear-test/story-e6frg6so-1226576256804

by arcatek • 13 years ago

96 132 13 years ago

theaustralian.com.au

apaprocki• 13 years ago

USGS link: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usc000f5t0#...

everettkhurst• 13 years ago

I hope they blew themselves up.

huragok• 13 years ago

Yes, death and suffering is what the world needs more of.

Volpe19• 13 years ago

Your comment is an example of why this kind of propaganda works. People start hating another country they've (likely) never been to, and likely have no understanding of their motives.

gfodor• 13 years ago

Honestly if by some Dr. Strangelove-esque mishap the entire NK high command were vaporized by their own nuclear test it would be pretty great.

I'm not sure if that's what the OP was saying though.

ryanhuff2• 13 years ago

I assume that you know that the OPer has no personal linkage to, or understanding of, the Korean situation? Or did you make a convenient assumption?

mikegioia2• 13 years ago

So when they did this in 2006, the UN issued weapons sanctions against North Korea[1]. Then when they did it again in 2009, the UN issued more sanctions[2] that apparently NK considered an 'act of war'. From them, the world has intercepted a whopping 6 North Korean boats and 1 North Korean airplane.

Aside from "issuing even more sanctions" what options are available to the UN? Good luck trying to send in a team of people to destroy the nuclear program, that will all but invite a warhead/attack.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council...

mjn• 13 years ago

For decades that's been the problem. South Korea's population centers are too close to the North for an attack to be a reasonable risk: even decades-old artillery and unguided rockets can hit Seoul, launched from hundreds of dug-in sites. So things have been organized around trying to pressure North Korea in various ways, either via China, or directly, but without force being a seriously considered option.

plaguuuuuu• 13 years ago

Yep. This is what happens when you expand too close to the enemy's base..

cpeterso• 13 years ago

What is North Korea's motivation? Given the UN's predicable past responses, North Korea must gain some political benefit from these UN responses.

rtrunck• 13 years ago

Foreign aid so citizens of North Korea can eat.

yk2• 13 years ago

NK argues that their regime is superior to all other regimes and prosperity would come any day now. Therefore asking for humanitarian aid would contradict their propaganda. On the other hand, as long as they are the worst of the bad, they have natural allies, like Iran, Myanmar and any other 'bad guy of the week.' In addition they can realistically only sell ballistic missiles and nuclear technology, since they do not produce much interesting stuff besides WMDs.

So the NK government has the choice between pushing nuclear technology and missiles, which kind of works in the short run, or they can throw all their previous work in this areas away to start a rather complicated transition to a more long term strategy. Depending on how stable the regime is, it may survive the short term problems such a change of strategy creates.

InclinedPlane6• 13 years ago

Ideological zeal. One of the most dangerous motivations in all of human history.

Currently they have been using the threat of attacks as a bargaining chip to extract things like food shipments from the US and Japan.

kamaal2• 13 years ago

Never ever underestimate the power of being self sufficient military wise. You can pretty much do anything you want and get away if you are a nuclear power. And its not like North Korea is going to remain poor forever.

Look at UAE and Singapore, it takes little time to change the economic situation. A little years here and there, with China's and India's emergence on the world scene things can change pretty rapidly. To cut US's influence in Asia, North Korea is a indispensable asset.

Allies are not permanent and US's help to Japan and South Korea is not infinite. Geopolitical situations will always change and have always changed throughout history.

Given this situation, North Korea can be a big player in the future, now imagine having the military might in this situation. It can force unification of the Korean peninsula on its terms in the future.

Volpe19• 13 years ago

Why is it wrong that NK do Nuclear testing?

I agree NK has some human rights issues, that should be addressed, but testing nuclear weapons is no different to Pakistan or India, and there are no sanctions against them.

mikegioia2• 13 years ago

It's the manner with which they're conducting the tests. Do you think nuclear testing should be done in private by an authoritarian regime, or do you think it should be done with the acceptance and supervision of the world's scientists?

Volpe19• 13 years ago

Erm... you mean like Pakistan did?

defrost2• 13 years ago

In their last round of tests neither Pakistan nor India performed them "with the acceptance and supervision of the world's scientists".

US intelligence was completely wrongfooted at the time of India's five Pokhran-II tests.

kamaal2• 13 years ago

>>or do you think it should be done with the acceptance and supervision of the world's scientists?

Firstly, no self respecting nation is ever going to wait for 'acceptance' and 'supervision' of some other nation. In fact that very thing implies some sort of master-slave relationship. Countries act in their own interests(just like every other country).

nemonemo2• 13 years ago

NK is aiming the weapon at US and its allies, unlike India or Pakistan who aim at each other.

B.R. Myer's talk explains the motive behind NK's nuclear program pretty well.

http://www.booktv.org/Watch/11315/The+Cleanest+Race+How+Nort...

Volpe19• 13 years ago

Right, so it makes sense that the US would be worried... not why the UN should sanction them.

I'm referring to the inconsistency. The implication of what you are saying is: "The UN only intervenes when it suits the US". To me that makes me think LESS of the UN sanctions, not more.

panacea2• 13 years ago

Seriously? 'some human rights issues'? There could be up to 200,000 political prisoners in North Korean gulags. It's an extreme dictatorship.

Volpe19• 13 years ago

Yes, they are severe. my 'some' wasn't refering to the severity of the issues.

Regardless this has nothing to do with whether sanctions should be applied for testing weapons.

pfraze• 13 years ago

Pakistan and India haven't closed off so many diplomatic options that direct economic pressure is the only option.

refurb2• 13 years ago

I'm guessing the issue is that NK is an openly hostile country that is not only threatening its southern neighbor but also the region.

India and Pakistan may have a beef with each other, but they weren't a destabilizing force in the region, or maybe more accurately, if they were, it wasn't a huge concern of the superpowers at the time.

Volpe19• 13 years ago

NK v SK conflict is not that different to India v Pakistan. The difference is... there are US troops sitting on the border of NK/SK, so agression between those to parties involves the US.

So who is the destabilising force in the region? I'm pretty sure "stability" isn't the goal (for the US) it's "Democracy".

cpleppert3• 13 years ago

I'm a little confused here. Your position is one that not even the biggest benefactor of North Korea supports (china) and is indistinguishable from the position that every regime regardless of its political structure should be able to access nuclear weapons. In other words, there should be little restrictions on the proliferation of nuclear technology.

The fact that they are conducting tests is also rather interesting. The simple devices they have developed do not require any testing and given their limited plutonium stockpile they are reducing the amount of deployable weapons by conducting their third test in six years.

I assume you would have supported South Africa's nuclear program?

InclinedPlane6• 13 years ago

Are you kidding me? The DPRK is one of the most horrific regimes in the last 2 centuries, and that includes the Nazis and the Stalinist Soviet Union. Of all the regimes that can't be trusted with nuclear weapons they are pretty much at the top of the list.

arcadeparade• 13 years ago

The USA has nuclear weapons in South Korea, and they are the only country to actually use them. If they withdrew then maybe the two Koreas could negotiate peace.

Volpe19• 13 years ago

Maybe you should just go google about the nazis, they invaded half the world and killed 10s of millions of people.

Talk about Godwin-ing a discussion.

jeswin• 13 years ago

Or the thousands of tests conducted by the p5. These arsenals aren't any more legitimate than Indian and Pakistani arsenals. What is needed is comprehensive disarmament, which the US and the rest of p5 are opposed to.

svdad• 13 years ago

There's no "right" or "wrong" about NK doing nuclear testing, although for convenience we might phrase it that way. We don't want them to have nuclear weapons because we believe they're a belligerent, unstable regime. Yes, we opened the can of worms, but that doesn't change the power balance.

caf4• 13 years ago

Pakistan and India were sanctioned after their tit-for-tat round of nuclear testing in 1998: http://articles.cnn.com/1998-06-18/world/9806_18_india.pakis...

Furthermore, as a member of the United Nations, North Korea has agreed to abide by binding decisions of the Security Council; UNSC resolution 1718 demands that North Korea not conduct any further nuclear test. This resolution was adopted under Chapter VII, meaning that the UNSC has identified North Korea's nuclear testing as a threat to the peace.

http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1718%2...

SoftwareMaven4• 13 years ago

My father-in-law was a VP in Northrop Grumman's space and satellite division. The kinds of projects he worked on were space defense satellites.

When he looked at all the uncertainty in the world (much caused at least indirectly by the US), his biggest fear was and continues to be North Korea.

Given the types of people I know he met with, this test does not fill me with warm fuzzies.

rooshdi5• 13 years ago

I wonder if the U.S. would react any differently if Iran had conducted these same tests.

yk2• 13 years ago

No, thats the entire point about obtaining nuclear weapons.

ISL2• 13 years ago

Iran is not presently capable of flattening a city the size of Seoul on a few moments' notice. Different situation, different response.

niggler3• 13 years ago

" his biggest fear was and continues to be North Korea."

Can you go into why? The sentiment runs at odds with Bush's obsession with Iraq/Iran.

mayneack• 13 years ago

Not really an ideal frame of reference

SoftwareMaven4• 13 years ago

It really comes down to the country's leadership. All of the other points in other comments here are certainly valid, but he feels that NK's leaders are more likely to be willing to push the button and the US is in range.

What I can't say is if this belief in NK's leaders is based on actual intelligence or some sort or just his opinion. Given their willingness to take pot-shots at SK, I know I'm concerned about this.

streptomycin2• 13 years ago

The Axis of Evil included North Korea along with those two countries.

InclinedPlane6• 13 years ago

Because the regime has always been crazy, even as it passes through different rulers. The best case scenario of North Korea is that the world is faced with a humanitarian crises on a shocking scale that will cost tens of billions of dollars to correct. The expected lower limit of the results of foreign action working to take down the North Korean regime would be the deaths of hundreds of thousands or millions of South Korean civilians (in a matter of hours) due to shelling from thousands of DPRK artillery positions. The possible upper limit of badness would be the North Koreans hitting Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Taipei, Tokyo, and Seoul with nuclear and/or chemical weapons on ICBMs, IRBMs, aircraft, or smuggled onto commercial cargo ships.

guimarin2• 13 years ago

This is sensationalist news at its finest. There is only one way to confirm that a nuclear bomb test has occurred and it is not by measuring 'resulting' earthquakes. Until either the US Gov't or the very top at the IAEA states there was a successful test, this is nothing but linkbait. Frankly, given the tensions right now between the North and South, and that it seems the North, with the Passing of Kim Jung Il, might be more willing to open up, I find this type of reporting and grandstanding for views really infuriating.

/rant

cjensen• 13 years ago

An earthquake 1000m below the surface on Nuclear Test Road (not a joke: type the coordinates into Google Maps) which occurs after a week of nuclear test threats and has a slightly larger magnitude than the last North Korean test is unlikely to be a coincidence.

guimarin2• 13 years ago

I'm positive that North Korea wants the world to believe that they're testing nuclear weapons, because that is their only bargaining card, but that doesn't mean they made a successful test.

ghshephard• 13 years ago

Seems like a little more than link bait: "South Korea and the US placed their forces in South Korea on alert in the wake of the rumoured blast as reports emerged that North Korea may have yesterday given the US and China advance warning of the test."

Edit - From http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/world/asia/north-korea-nuc...: "Tibor Toth, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO), said the seismic event's location was "roughly congruent with" nuclear tests carried out by North Korea in 2006 and 2009."

druiid2• 13 years ago

Actually, that is incorrect. It's relatively easy to determine if an 'earthquake' is a natural occurrence or if it is from a test like this. http://seismo.berkeley.edu/blog/seismoblog.php/2009/05/25/of...

jandrewrogers• 13 years ago

Man-made explosions, both chemical and nuclear, have seismic signatures that are substantially different than natural sources and which have been measured countless times from US and Soviet testing. The earthquake sensor feeds are often scrubbed of non-earthquake sources; ever wonder how they do that?

There is a possibility that it is a chemical explosion, if you are willing to swallow the idea that the North Koreans detonated several million kilos of military high explosives in a mine shaft somewhere. But even then, while the signature is closer to a nuclear explosion it is not identical. Maybe the seismic data from a variety of sources is damaged or defective but I'm not counting on it.

Have you considered the possibility that you are the one over-reacting? Our ability to classify seismic motion is much more sophisticated than you seem to be assuming. It is the same reason they can tell whether an earthquake swarm in a particular spot is caused by local fault activity or the imminent emergence of a volcano -- the signature is different. There is a lot more to analyzing seismic activity than just the magnitude. It is also how we do subsurface imaging for mining oil. It is a mathematically sophisticated field, give it some respect.

AUmrysh• 13 years ago

This is sad. Nuclear proliferation can be a good thing (energy), but it can also be a bad thing (weapons). NK only does this to get attention from other nations and feel like they are on the same level as them. The end result is food aid to stop the nuclear development. What's really sad is the world produces enough food to feed the entire population of the world, but most of it gets thrown away. I'm willing to pay twice as much for my food if it means the rest of the world gets to eat too, but I fear most people just don't care.

The good news, if you could call it that, is that China doesn't want American troops stationed on it's south border, so they will do what they can to keep NK in line.

brownbat2• 13 years ago

Most informative piece on North Korean culture I've read recently was written by someone who worked in Pyongyang for a year as a "reviser" (giving a final read over their English translated press releases):

http://www.aidanfc.net/a_year_in_pyongyang.html

"A Year in Pyongyang" is just fascinating. Really digs into the mechanics and psychology of a state run under a cult of personality.

It's also completely free.

The biggest takeaway: there are probably a shockingly high number of "true believers" there that would fight to the last man in any conflict.

caf4• 13 years ago

Statement by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation: http://www.ctbto.org/press-centre/press-releases/2013/statem...

zensavona3• 13 years ago

These kinds of "you guys can't have nukes because they're bad, but we'll keep some on hand because we're responsible" disputes that the USA seems to love force me think "where are all the adults?"

Pkeod• 13 years ago

Some nations having nukes stops industrial scale war. There is no way to go to before there were nukes... it's necessary for enough of the power players to have control of them but not all of the players.

The adults are the non-nationalist people who see the world as a global community. These people are rare in politics it seems.

zensavona3• 13 years ago

Rare indeed.

untog• 13 years ago

This kind of thinking is disappointing. North Korea is a dictatorship that is irrational enough to starve it's citizens- if it has that little care for it's people, why wouldn't it launch some nukes?

Is the US perfect? No. Is it a democratic, accountable country? Largely, yes. There is no perfect system of government, and people should stop pretending that everyone is on the same moral level.

Volpe19• 13 years ago

That's misrepresenting US to suit US propaganda.

The US leveled two countries in order to assassinate someone in a third country. It wasn't held accountable at all.

You are right, morally they are not on the same level, but not the way you think they aren't.

mathieuh• 13 years ago

North Korea is starving because the UN impose food sanctions every time NK do any thing which threatens UN imperialism.

Turing_Machine2• 13 years ago

Where are all the adults?

Not equating North Korea or Iran with Western democracies, that's for sure.

dinkumthinkum8• 13 years ago

The adults are in the not in North Korea; I assure you. It is all well and fun the cry some sort of hypocrisy fall very weak to me. If you think the U.S. is bad, you're going to love North Korea.

ck2• 13 years ago

Think of all those poor suffering people starving to death, eating bark off trees, just so the government can afford to do this.

It's just sickening.

kposehn• 13 years ago

I think it should be pointed out here that the NK regime is not actually crazy, they simply are very skilled at acting in such a way to extract concessions and aid to keep the regime intact.

thoughtcriminal• 13 years ago

God how I wish the North Korean regime would be wiped off the face of the planet.

'Artificial' earthquake detected in North Korea may be nuclear test

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