Signs aplenty that N Korea is set for powerful nuke test

[chahlley]

(Hot news Today Friday 14 April 2017)

Signs aplenty that N Korea is set for powerful nuke test

Vehicles or trailers parked around the north portal of North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

Commercial satellite imagery from Wednesday showed continued activity around the portal,

new activity in the main administrative area, and a  few personnel around the site’s command centre.

Source: Airbus Defence & Space And 38 north

NEW YORK — New satellite images suggest that North Korea might soon conduct another underground detonation in its effort to learn how to make nuclear arms — its sixth explosive test in a decade and perhaps its most powerful yet.

North Korea’s nuclear tests have grown steadily more destructive, and the country continues to pursue its longtime goal of putting a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental missile capable of reaching targets around the globe.

The United States recently ordered an aircraft carrier and other warships towards the Korean Peninsula in a show of force intended to discourage the North from testing a nuclear weapon.

While examining satellite imagery this week, experts have observed a wide range of activity at Mount Mantap, a 1.6km-high peak where North Korea conducts its nuclear tests. Beneath the mountain, a system of tunnels has been excavated for the past five detonations of the North’s nuclear bombs.

North Korea often marks significant dates with shows of military force, and analysts say it might detonate a nuclear weapon to celebrate the birthday tomorrow of the nation’s founder, Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the current leader, Mr Kim Jong-un.

In 2012, it tried but failed to launch a long-range rocket carrying a satellite to mark the date and tested a newly-developed intermediate-range missile last year.

On Tuesday, North Korea warned of a nuclear attack on the US at any sign of American aggression.

Since late 2013, piles of rocky debris from the excavation of Mount Mantap’s north tunnel system have grown quite large — now big enough to cover a football field, and quite high. It is the largest pile ever observed there. Work on the excavation has recently slowed, quite likely signalling readiness for the next detonation.

Scientists at the Los Alamos weapons lab who have studied images of the large debris pile recently concluded that Mount Mantap could withstand a nuclear explosion of up to 282 kilotonnes — roughly 20 times stronger than the Hiroshima blast. Previously, the largest detonations were in the Hiroshima range.

Experts in satellite imagery, military analysts around the world, and geologists and physicists track
progress at the remote site mainly through the observation of tunnelling, building construction, truck movements and, though harder to see, movement of personnel.

Mount Mantap is the world’s only active nuclear test site. Most other nuclear states gave up such explosions long ago in a coordinated effort to end arms races, and their dangerous and costly spirals of military action and reaction.

In North Korea, the test devices are buried deep inside tunnels bored through solid rock far below Mount Mantap’s peaks, creating field labs for nuclear experiments. The nearest major city, Chongjin, is situated about 80km to the north-east.

Last year, a team of South Korean scientists confirmed a test’s exact location within Mount Mantap by studying data from a radar satellite that detected subtle elevation changes on the mountain’s surface.

So far, North Korea’s nuclear tests have grown more destructive.

Experts say the likelihood of North Korea making strides in its nuclear programme has risen with the recent evidence that the nation tried to sell excess lithium-6, which is the main ingredient for making thermonuclear fuels, including tritium.

The North has shown technical savvy in pacing its nuclear tests to increase the amount of time for bomb makers to conduct detailed analyses of the blasts and learn from mistakes.

“They’ve done five tests in 10 years,” said Professor Siegfried  S Hecker of Stanford University, who once directed the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb. “You can learn a lot in that time.”

In contrast, he added, India and Pakistan conducted a rush of nuclear detonations in May 1998 in what experts called a blitz of sabre rattling. “They couldn’t have learned much,” Prof Hecker said. THE NEW YORK TIMES