Looks like we'll need to find another boogeyman to start a war with.

However, if the accident did happen, it wouldn't be surprising. North Korea is not generally known for its technological brilliance.

Good for us not being faced with yet another war

this is likely not true, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NYT, nothing.

This would be a major story if true.

Some usually credible sources, too.

E.g. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/nordkorea-atomtest-soll-hunderte-menschen-getoetet-haben-a-1175848.html

They say reporting is based on TV reports from Japan.

Today, Spiegel Online reported that North Korea denies the reports:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/nordkorea-dementiert-berichte-ueber-tote-bei-atomtest-a-1176160.html

So it's not clear who's right and who's wrong. I haven't seen reports about possibly dangerous radioactive fallout.

Both reference the Japanese news story. It also referenced a US Geological Survey that monitored quakes as strong as 6.3 and a satellite image that potentially showed a collapsed rock area but it’s all subjective. There are no other reports other than the one station and no intelligence services have mentioned it publicly either. There is significant evidence they are preparing for another test. It seems unlikely they could test in a collapsed facility.

I think it should be taken with a large amount of scepticism until validated by multiple sources.

it could be real, or it could be some sort of veiled threat. I'm sure that we are working on some sort of remote sabotage effort as we did with Iran's program.

If that facility and mountain had a catastrophic failure, akin to how they describe, i would worry about massive amounts of radiation spilling out over a huge area, making Chernobyl look like a bake sale.

So it wouldn't be the end of the world.

But like Chernobyl, it could make a large area uninhabitable for a very long time.

There were reports about them doing this a few weeks ago.

not too long after the last explosion. As I remember they said it did not resemble a man made quake like an explosion, but a natural quake more like a colapse.

Maybe this is what they are referring to which would old news except for their details and analysis.

So, the entire site may have been seriously compromised, be it the damage described in original report or this one. Think Maddow covered that initial report because the ensuing earthquake (which was sizable) did not conform to a 'natural' event.

The quake from a test is very specific, so much so that they can use it to pinpoint location, size and type of weapon that was tested. Each type of device has its own seismic “fingerprint”.