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Cleveland Daily Banner—Wednesday, January 6, 2016—15
N. Korea says it tested H-bomb, though advance doubted
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) —
Soon after the ground shook
around its nuclear testing facility, North Korea trumpeted its
first hydrogen bomb test — a
powerful, self-proclaimed “Hbomb of justice” that would
mark a major and unanticipated
advance for its still-limited
nuclear arsenal.
Pyongyang’s announcement
Wednesday was met with widespread skepticism, but whatever
the North detonated in its fourth
nuclear test, another round of
tough international sanctions
looms for the defiant, impoverished country.
The test likely pushed
Pyongyang’s scientists and engineers closer to their goal of
building a warhead small
enough to place on a missile that
can reach the U.S. mainland.
But South Korea’s spy agency
thought the estimated explosive
yield from the explosion was
much smaller than what even a
failed H-bomb detonation would
produce.
The test was met with a burst
of jubilation and pride in
Pyongyang. A North Korean tele-
vision anchor, reading a typically
propaganda-heavy statement,
said a test of a “miniaturized”
hydrogen bomb had been a “perfect success” that elevated the
country’s “nuclear might to the
next level.”
A large crowd celebrated in
front of Pyongyang’s main train
station as the announcement
was read on a big video screen,
with people taking videos or photos of the screen on their mobile
phones and applauding and
cheering.
In Seoul and elsewhere there
was high-level worry. South
Korean President Park Geun-hye
ordered her military to bolster its
combined defense posture with
U.S. forces and called the test a
“grave provocation” and “an act
that threatens our lives and
future.” Japanese Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe said, “We absolutely
cannot allow this.”
Washington and nuclear
experts have been skeptical
about past North Korean claims
about H-bombs, which are much
more powerful and much more
difficult to make, than atomic
bombs. A confirmed test would
further worsen already abysmal
relations between Pyongyang
and its neighbors and lead to a
strong push for tougher sanctions on North Korea at the
United Nations. The Security
Council quickly announced an
emergency meeting.
A successful H-bomb test
would be a big advance. Fusion
is the main principle behind the
hydrogen bomb, which can be
hundreds of times more powerful than atomic bombs that use
fission. In a hydrogen bomb,
radiation from a nuclear fission
explosion sets off a fusion reaction responsible for a powerful
blast and radioactivity.
A South Korean lawmaker
said the country’s spy agency
told him in a private briefing that
Pyongyang may not have conducted an H-bomb test given the
relatively small size of the seismic wave reported.
An estimated explosive yield of
6.0 kilotons and a quake with a
magnitude of 4.8 (the U.S.
reported 5.1) were detected, lawmaker Lee Cheol Woo said the
National Intelligence Service told
him. That’s smaller than the
estimated explosive yield of 7.9
kilotons and a quake with a
magnitude of 4.9 that were
reported after the 2013 nucle