Quake in N Korea, China says suspected explosion
earthquake administration said on Saturday it had detected a 3.4-magnitude earthquake in North Korea that was a “suspected explosion”, raising fears the isolated state had conducted another nuclear bomb test weeks after its last one.
An official at South Korea’s meteorological agency said they were analysing the tremor, which they put at magnitude 3.0, but the initial view was that it was a natural quake.
“We use several methods to tell whether earthquakes are natural or man-made,” said the official.
“A key method is to look at the seismic waves or seismic acoustic waves and the latter can be detected in the case of a manmade earthquake. In this case we saw none. So as of now we are categorising this as a natural earthquake.”
The earthquake was detected in Kilju county in North Hamgyong Province, where North Korea’s known Punggyeri
BEIJING/SEOUL:China’s
nuclear site is located, the official said.
The Chinese administration said in a statement on its website that the quake was recorded a depth of zero kilometres.
All of North Korea’s previous six nuclear tests registered as earthquakes of 4.3-magnitude or above.
The last test on September 3 registered as a 6.3-magnitude quake.
A secondary tremor detected after that test could have been caused by the collapse of a tunnel at the mountainous site, experts said at the time.
Satellite photos of the area after the September 3 quake showed numerous landslides apparently caused by the massive blast, which North Korea said was a hydrogen bomb.