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posted by mrpg on Thursday September 07 2017, @03:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the maybe-could-be-probably dept.

North Korea's nuclear test site at risk of imploding, Chinese scientist says

The single mountain under which North Korea most likely conducted its five most recent nuclear bomb tests, including the latest and most powerful on Sunday, could be at risk of collapsing, a Chinese scientist said.

By measuring and analyzing the shock waves caused by the blasts, and picked up by quake stations in China and neighboring countries, researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, Anhui province, said they were confident that they were all carried out from under the same mountain at the Punggye-ri test site.

[...] Another test might cause the whole mountain to cave in on itself, leaving only a hole from which radiation could escape and drift across the region, including China, he said. "We call it 'taking the roof off'. If the mountain collapses and the hole is exposed, it will let out many bad things."

[...] Based on the fact that North Korea has a limited land area and bearing in mind the sensitivity of its nuclear program, it most likely does not have too many suitable peaks to choose from. How long the mountain would continue to stand would also depend on where the North Koreans placed the bombs, Wang said. "If the bombs were planted at the bottom of vertically drilled tunnels, the explosion would do less damage," he said.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday September 07 2017, @05:45AM (2 children)

    by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Thursday September 07 2017, @05:45AM (#564436)

    you would need a very big hole for that much TNT and the shock waves would be different than a nuclear device in duration and intensity.

    And the USA did something similar awhile back so they would have a very good idea what to look for in the seismic record.
    http://www.military.com/video/explosions/blast/navy-detonates-1-million-lbs-of-tnt/1826694402001 [military.com]

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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @07:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @07:39AM (#564460)

    Before the Trinity test, 100 tons of TNT, mixed with radioactive material, was exploded [atomicheritage.org] for calibration purposes.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @02:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @02:14PM (#564565)

    I get that 1 million lbs is ~ 450 tons, so they would need ~ 200x more TNT to get ~100 kilotons.