Seoul: In what seems to be a man-made occurrence, an earthquake was detected near a nuclear testing site in North Korea. It was reported by several monitoring agencies on Wednesday.
The United States Geological Service reported the 5.1 magnitude quake and said the epicentre of the quake – detected at 10:00 am Pyongyang time (0130 GMT) – was in the northeast of the country, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Kilju city, placing it right next to the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.
The website of the China Earthquake Network Centre described it as a “suspected explosion”.
“We suspect a man-made earthquake and are analysing the scale and epicentre of the quake with the geoscience and mineral resource institute of South Korea,” a Korea Meteorological Administration official said to media sources
The North has conducted three nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013 – all at the Punggye-ri site.
Researchers at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said last month that recent satellite images showed North Korea was excavating a new tunnel at Punggye-ri.
“While there are no indications that a nuclear test in imminent, the new tunnel adds to North Korea’s ability to conduct additional detonations over the coming years if it chooses to do so,” they said at the time.
