North Koreans say explosion was not a nuke

According to the BBC.

North Korean officials said that the explosion was the deliberate demolition of a mountain as part of a massive hydroelectric project.

Well, good that it wasn't a nuke, bad that they are just as hell-bent to destroy their country as the rest of the world.

a mountain?

Easy, a shit load of TNT.

That registers on the Richter scale, and produces a mushroom cloud.

LOLOL

Yet, all the seismic monitering stations in the world say that there was nothing. The only thing is a fleating mention of a M2.6 earthquake recorded by the South Koreans, yet no actual data to show that that actually happened.

Not that I buy the North Korean explanation....... there were two explosions, and they were both in the middle of the night. I think an ammunition factory probably blew up.

South Korea said so.

Ammo factories do not produce mushroom clouds.

Create mushroom clouds.

I've seen major ones...and they never once produced that distinctive mushroom cloud.

than others. The visibility of the cloud depends on the size of the explosion, what got blown up, and the type of explosives used.

I happened to be speculating on the touch-off of an ammunition dump in another thread just a minute ago. So here are some articles plus a few extra goodies from my big-ass explosion file.

Al Qaeda dump blows up real good:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/central/05/11/afghan.caves/index.html?related

Iranian runaway train (that's the Iranian one, not the North Korean one--seems like those Axis of Evilites are having a bad year for that sort of thing) registers 3.6 on the Richter scale:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/18/world/main600853.shtml

An example of a very large underground explosion with a smallish mushroom cloud:

http://www.carolyn.topmum.net/tutbury/fauld/fauldcrater.htm

Mushroom clouds in general, symptom of a big-ass explosion or collision, but not exclusively nukes:

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Mushroom%20cloud

Seymour Narrows, one of the many "largest non-nuclear explosions ever created." People just don't feel special if their big-ass explosion wasn't the largest.

http://www.vancouverislandabound.com/tamingof.htm

MOAB:

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20031123/world.htm

Dong Ha:

http://ansel.his.duq.edu/~woytek/cbmu301/maps.html

And no, as Flagius intimated, not one of the above links will be found to be identical to the incident in Korea, because as a big-ass explosion aficionado I can tell you that they are all different depending upon a huge number of variables: above or below ground, concentration, fuel source, soil composition, wind, altitude, air pressure, et cetera.

mushroom clouds, that is.

It produced a mushroom cloud, and it wasn't nuclear.

So, will any supersonic detonation of sufficient material. I don't know if you have ever seen the video of the rocket fuel plant in Utah blowing up! First, it is the clearest video i've ever seen of the supersonic shock wave. The torroid is a clear as day! But, within about 3 seconds there is the unmistakable mushroom cloud above the facility. It's a tragic video, since a bunch of people were killed. But, any sufficiently large, high velocity explosion will create the cloud. It doesn't have to be nuclear. It's just that since all nuclear weapons are so high in their chemical explosive equivalence, they ALWAYS do.
The Professor

Now we would need a report of a double flash, typical of Nuclear devices, lay the odds that we would hear this from either Chinese or N.Korean officials? Remember this happened in a very isolated area of the country

That wide and large of they used several thousand tons of TNT, you know, about the amount you would need to blow up a mountain.

the official version of the US Press last night

to we blew a mountain? You realize what yoou are talking about, don't you? And you sure you could do that?

Ok, if you want to believe the N.Korean explanaition the more power to you...

I will remain skeptical here, thank you

Necessarily believe their explanation, but to say that it HAD to be a nuke is ignoring other valid possibilities. From what I have read about Kim, if he detonated a nuke he would be broadcasting that fact.

Also take into account a TNT explosion is not that easy to control... that cloud was consistent with a nuke, not TNT.

They did explode a Nuke, the word saw it, those in the places that matter got the message. He does not need to do more...

Now pay attention to other things, such as our public pronouncemetns, but given that this would not help Bush, I expect the current administration to hide its head in the sand and hope it goes away... if we ignore it... even if Kim came out and said this was a nuke. Also watch how fast SK goes Nuclear and how fast Japan does, if this was a nuclear event, I am counting on those two going nuclear oh within five years MAX.

By the way I used to work in EMS, and have seen pretty uncontrolled explosions, including pretty major industrial accidents... that is why this explanation is suspect... oh and hydroelectric, can you truly DROP a mountain that easily?

Think about it...

And the siesmic activity could be attributed to chunks of the mountain falling and hitting the ground as well as landslides. If enough debris was sent up into the atmosphere then you could get a very large mushroom cloud. Also, look at the picture from Iraq during the "shock and awe" part of the initial invasion, you get some comparitively small, but very cohesive mushroom clouds.

As far as I know the only source for the "2.5 mile mushroom cloud" claim is an "unnamed diplomatic source" in Beijing who passed on accounts of "a cloud with a radius of up to 4km (2.5 miles)." In other words an anonymous source who may or may not know jackshit about explosions and nukes passed on second- or third-hand accounts from anonymous witnesses (who also may or may not know anything about explosives) of a cloud with a radius between zero and 2.5 miles. I'm not sure I'd rank that information as substantially more credible than what's coming from North Korea. If there's been another source for that then I'd gladly stand corrected but when I see people citing the mushroom cloud claim as fact while dismissing everything else (no detected seismic activity consistent with a nuke, no detected radiation after nearly four days) it strikes me as a bit goofy.

a diplomat as well, look in the archives

It also said that there was a crater that could be seen in satellite photos. I don't recall their source for this.

They now say British diplomats want to visit the site. Which could mean that they don't believe the story, or that all the powers are getting their stories straight. If North Korea really has blown up a fair sized fission device, they might be getting invited into the nuclear club on a "don't tell, don't ask" basis. There is no need bothering the little people around the world with the news, but the military people will know the score.

At a minimum, let's see the picture of a recently demolished mountain. It is interesting how our media goes from saying that North Korea is a poor, backward, failed state, to one that demolishes mountains for massive hydro-electric programs. All of this is done with no outside help, as it is also a "pariah state", or so we are told.

"The country's foreign minister, Paek Nam-sun, said the blast was in fact the deliberate demolition of a mountain as part of a huge, hydro-electric project." - BBC website, right now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3650702.stm

There are reasons not to believe them....

As is... there are reasons to consider this to be far more than a construction project

Items to consider:

1.- They are reprocesing Plutonium
2._ They showed Rods to US reps to get OUR attention
3.- Came out of the Non Prolifeartion Treaty

Way too many reasons for the Brits to be concerned and they may be able to carry out that visit far easier than us...

geology I assume... and understand that it took far more than just directed explosive charges to get that canal dug out don't you

But the general principle is the same.

that when those explosives were set, the explosions were IN SERIES not all at the same time, don't you? And you know that when in series you have a bunch of "small explosions" used for demolition purposes, not one major explosion going on at the same time... which is what this would entail, as well as a hell of a coordinated explosion.

And the only reason that was the case, is because they didnt have the remote detonation capability we posess today.

there is an engineering reason for this....

So you telling me that NK Engineers did not....

Why am I skeptical of this...

by the way those who needed to get the message did, loud and clear... oh and remind me didn't we try to deny the South African Device until SA finally admited it as well?

when we get satellite images and radiation readings.

who exactly right now would benefit from SUPRESSING this information in the US Press?

And if you think they would not, I do have a bridge to sell you

This is not somethign that any of us would have possited four years ago, but these days you do have to ask yourself, would anybody benefit from this being supressed?

...nobody even seems sure that we're talking about one major explosion here. Some sources are claiming at least two explosions, i.e. this one. And this article refers to two additional explosions detected by South Korean intelligence "on the night of August 2 to 3" (which I'm pretty sure is a typo for "September 2 to 3," since elsewhere in the article they refer to the explosion on "August 9" when the explosion actually took place on September 9).

reported by two sources and consistent with a nuclear cloud.


Look as my trainiing tells me, plan for the worst, it WAS a nuclear explosion and those concerned GOT THE MESSAGE, and hope for the best

If this was a nuke, the balance of power in the region just went to hell in a hand basket...

reported by two sources and consistent with a nuclear cloud.

Also consistent with a non-nuclear cloud. I don't know where this "big mushroom cloud = nuke" thing comes from. Volcanoes produce mushroom clouds, the Texas City explosion produced a mushroom cloud, even the North Korean train explosion in April produced a mushroom cloud. Any sufficiently large explosion produces a mushroom cloud; a nuke is differentiated by certain seismic signatures, radioactive byproducts, and telltale satellite flashes, none of which we've heard anything about beyond a report from South Korea of a 2.5 reading on the Richter scale (which, if accurate, would be either a large conventional explosion or a ridiculously small nuke).

This happened in San Bernadino last year. Apparantly the mushroom shaped cloud was approx 5 miles in width.

Here is a link to a news report that North Korea will let in foreign diplomats to the explosion site.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=582222§ion=news

Even one of those diplomats carries in a radiation counter, they'll know. You can't clean up radioactive material in a hurry.

And just cause your government wouldn't tell your country's citizens the truth doesn't mean that the Japanese government wouldn't. In fact the Japanese news agencies would most likely play up the possibility of it being a nuke, thus giving the hawks there more ammunition to scrap Japan's pacifist constitution. remember that every original news organization that ran with this took their report from Yonhap, who quoted their source as an "unnamed chinese diplomat". That's one unverified source.

from the explosion of a mountain. The explosives would be dispersed across an area of a few square miles probably, and not concentrated in one spot. So, I would expect a huge plume of dust rather like a massive forest fire's smoke or the ash from a volcanic eruption.

A mushroom cloud usually results from the updraft created by the heat of an explosion. I imagine that a mountain would absorb most of that heat as it disintegrates. In other words, the over-burden would tamp down the mushroom.

Either way, it's an outrage. I remember the Sovs were planning to divert the Volga with a series of nuclear explosions. Can you believe that? Atoms for Peace, I guess.

The USGS says that there was NO seismic activity, not only on their website, but from the mouths of geologists.

And how do you know that ammo factories don't produce mushroom clouds? Have you ever blown one up?

Even these are not necessarily that diagnostic. It depends on a lot of different factors. The fact that this was done in mountainous country might cause attenuation of the seismic signal, for example, due to all the folding and faulting in the surrounding terrain.

"Problems specific to the first approach (Direct seismic yield estimation) is accounting for all the variables that influence the apparent signal produced by a given yield. These include coupling of the explosion to the medium surrounding it, local signal propagation in the test area, and long distance signal propagation to the measuring site. As noted above the relationship between a measured signal and the actual yield can vary over a factor of at least 6, even if no unusual coupling factors are involved."

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/India/IndiaRealYields.html

Even the fallout signature can be difficult to confirm. The same site has an article about the probably test in the South Atlantic by South Africa in the late 1970's, which experts still argue about.

Didn't the U.S. have satellites that were set up to detect Soviet nuclear tests as part of enforcement of the test ban treaty? They were supposed to pick up gamma radiation. That's how neutron stars or something like that got discovered.

They've probably been retired, huh. End of History and all that.

The Vela satellites were used for this.

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Safrica/Vela.html

They pick up the characteristic double flash of an actual nuclear detonation, which can't be produced by any other phenomenon - it relates to the underlying nuclear physics, when the intense flash of the fireball is overtaken by the super heated shock wave which is somewhat less bright.

There are probably plenty of spy satellites looking for evidence of bombs, especially watching a country like North Korea. I believe the government put some barriers in place to purchase of commercial satellite photos recently.

yesterday, i was up early. i downloaded an image from a college website, and it showed actvity in the geophysical realm that indicated a blast on the date in question. clearly, without political content.

then, today i get on line this morning. same site, same college- new "data." it was weird- i left my home machine on all night, and when i came back, the same site had a different set of data than what it had had during the previous loading in the day before. i wonder why? ...it was just odd. also, i had real problems sending this page to friends. it just wouldn't seem to go thru. i'm no computer person, and probably just being paranoid. whatever.

nuke or no, this was a sign. pay attention, to the proxy wars and conflict which will precursor what is to come. and be afraid: the nuke option is on the table with the worst of these people; moon, bushies, the rest. they don't care about you at all.

i wish we could know what really happened. but i think it's a proxy war strike, even as i try to understand to whom it was addressed. and i don't doubt that our "teams" selected to deal with world hotspots have other agendas than those of us who are real americans. the bad guys only care about themselves, and in the $hort term.

think about it people. think about what this really could mean.

It does.

Or, maybe they just had a bunch of slave laborers bore holes into it and fill it up with a few megatons of TNT. Blowed it up REEEEAL good.

What insanity. My avatar, Ms. Arundathi Roy, has been a campaigner against dams in India.

But this seems unlikely. I just don't see a two mile mushroom cloud coming from hydroelectric construction. There were huge projects in Northern Quebec - I don't recall hearing about 2 mile mushroom clouds.

North Korea could be doing a nudge, nudge, wink, wink. It is not necessary that they tell the laypeople of the world that it was a nuclear device - military and strategic analysts would know what it was, and that is who they would be informing with a demonstration shot.

I have seen very large explosions due to industrial accidents

And this one was NOT an industrial accident...

You are right, intel agencies got the message, but I suspect now some are trying to cool down things

And it just wouldn't make sense for them to piss off China, which that most certainly would have done.

I still think their missile test range blew up, and that might be a blessing in disguise because it would be a step backward for their program.

any nation detecting it...just keeps quiet.

C'mon...nations have developed nukes before without anyone knowing about it.

Why would China be 'pissed off'...N Korea is no threat to them.

Anybody with a geiger counter could detect the amount of radiation and if a nuke went off in the atmosphere, it would leave it's signature for all to see.

Why is everyone so daggone anxious for this to be a nuke?

the NK have been threatening to do this...

By the way, you do have a geiger counter at home, don't you?

Not trying to be fascitious, but how many people you know who OWN one?

Japan is downwind of both North Korea and China, so if the nuke testing doesn't get 'em, the coal burning will. Then there's the burning of trash which puts dioxins in the air. But, I think the Japanese are doing that, too. That's how they get rid of their trash: they don't recycle much, just sort it into combustible and non-combustible, burn the former and bury the latter.

Get green, people.

that is the worst industrial accident I can think off

It happened in Mexico City over ten years ago, in fact a year before the Earthquake...

That was a natural gas refinery going up in a nice explosion. The thing, we did the exercise after the fact, probably released the equivalent of a very snall tac nuke... the mushroom cloud was not that large or huge...

The one the Chinese reported is consistent with oh a hiroshima or nagasaki sized device, and you truly think the Chinese would go public on radiation? there are many ways to skin a cat... keep yoru eyes on the CBC, our best hope, if this was nuclear, to go public on isotopes in the atmosphere. Should be reaching Canada in the next 24 to 36 hours, worst case

There's far less fall out of radiation from an underground test. If the irradiated matter doesn't go up into the air, there's simply less radiation. The timing is noteworthy. They're like "oh yeh, we just so happen to be building a dam right about now too. Didn't we tell you?"

Nope. I remember when Apartheid-era South Africa helped Israel test its nuke. Everyone was going "oh, South Africa couldn't possibly have the Bomb, so it must be a natural phenomenon creating that big white shroom in the southern Indian Ocean. Now fifteen years later nobody doubts what was going on.

I hope it doesn't take us 15 years to figure out how to deal with a nuke-capable Kim.

The video of the mountain inside which they detonated the device? The mountain didn't blow up, but it shook so much that dust rose up from it.

Maybe the North Koreans were testing a nuke inside a mountain, too. Only they underestimated the yield. They discussed a cover-up for a few days and settled on the hydroelectric story.

Anyway, how could Secy. Powell state with certainty that it wasn't a nuclear detonation? A mountain might have contained all the telltale signs: the flash, the shock wave, most of the radiation. Then, after being hollowed out, it collapses and you get this massive dust cloud that was reported in the press.

Hey, this is more fun than speculating about superscripts, typefaces and old typewriters. It's Dr. Strangelove time! Vy did't you tell za veld, aye?

from outer space. Certainly, this same technology should confirm whether North Korea has been constructing a dam in the area where the mushroom cloud came from.

Call me skeptical, but I've seen news reports in which some military satellite expert shows reporters satellite footage of a group of people walking around some area, and the military man was able to identify Osama bin Laden with a great degree of certainty. Funny thing, but that same technology was unable to locate where Iraq's WMDs were being produced and transported.

have long since said they have nukes.

They have lobbed a missile over Japan into the Pacific...made the headlines.

Alaskans found the remnants of a N Korean missile on their shores. Made the news too.

The US military warned Canada ages ago that the N Koreans could lob a missile into Montreal ....although they never explained why the Koreans would WANT to....but they came north to discuss it with us.

N Korea has threatened all this for years...and been ignored.

They even warned a couple of weeks ago that they were about to do a nuclear test.

And now that they have set off an explosion registering 2.5 on the Richter scale, and producing a mushroom cloud...we have skeptics??

Isn't there something about a river in Egypt that fits here?

I mean...what the hell do they have to do to get noticed....? Obliterate San Franciso or what??

on raised isotopes... I am proof possitive... but here

Yep Denial is not only a river in Egypt...

Which is to say not at all.

anyone ever seen Trinity and Beyond or know the story about the development of the first A-Bombs?

Its entirely possible for large ammounts of TNT or any other explosion to make mushroom clouds.

Prior to the testing of the Trinity device the government detonated something like 1,000 tons of TNT just to get a good guestimate of what an explosion that large would do.

That test produced a mushroom cloud.

I have been trying to remember the name of that show for a couple of months. Any idea if/when it will be made into a DVD?

Here are two massive, non-nuclear explosions. The first is an ammonium perchlorate plant in Nevada and the second is a fireworks factory.

http://www.media.ebaumsworld.com/index.php?e=fireworkfactory.wmv
http://www.exponent.com/multimedia/movies/hend_sm.mov

The major explosions are at the middle and end of both vids.

Jay

If they had the bomb, they'd surely be crowing about it. We don't have the spine to invade anybody who has it. Just ask Pakistan.

By the way South Africa DENIED it had one for YEARS and the Israelis to this day DO NOT have nukes... officially that is... care to place odds if they have oh about a hundred of them

I thought nuclear explosions had a specific seismic signature?

What about the EM pulse? Was anything picked up by radio ops on the west coast or conjugate points (I guess Austrailia or NZ)?

I don't really know enough about this, but I would have thought there would be something more.

Finally - if they have just successfully tested a nuke, why hide it? Surely you want to invite some top US & SKorean Brass to watch.

Seoul, Washington officials doubt Pyongyang conducted nuclear test

<...>

A U.S. satellite picked up the damage and crater left by the explosion in Kimhyongjik County, where North Korea is reported have a major base housing Daepodong intermediate-range ballistics missiles that have a range of 2,200 kilometers.

<...>

A senior South Korean official who requested anonymity said the government was ruling out the possibility the explosion may be linked to a possible nuclear test by Pyongyang.

"The area is surrounded by mountains and a railroad track runs through the area which means at least a small number of people live there. We don't think there are casualties. And the area is also connected to the border with China, so we doubt that the explosion was a nuclear test."

"It's difficult to say, but it won't be easy for North Korea to conduct a nuclear test without resulting in massive losses of its own people," said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert in Seoul. "I think there is more possibility that it is a simple accident, rather than a deliberate nuclear test."

More:
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2004/09/13/200409130005.asp

A British diplomat is going to visit the site of the explosion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3650702.stm