The Nuclear test may have been a hoax.

Questions Raised Over Test Result

By Park Song-wu
Staff Reporter

Even though North Korea said it successfully conducted an underground nuclear test on Monday, Seoul and Washington have not yet confirmed whether Pyongyang's claims are true. Only Moscow immediately said the blast was a nuclear explosion.

Their careful attitude is grounded in the high possibility that the test could be a ``hoax'' _ in which North Korea set off a stock of conventional explosives _ or a failed test that had a yield substantially below its intended value.

``It seems unlikely to me that North Korea would have designed a first nuclear weapon with a yield of 1 kiloton or less,'' said James Acton of Vertic, a non-profit making, non-governmental organization in London that specializes in verification research, in an e-mail interview with The Korea Times.

The Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources in Taejon, south of Seoul, initially said the seismic shockwave from a rugged site in the North's northwest coast registered 3.58 on the Richter scale that is translated into a yield of around 0.8 kilotons.

``I would have thought that it intended to have a yield of around 10 to 20 kilotons,'' he said. ``So, if the yield is put at 800 tons, then I think it is fair to call the test a failure.''

Acton said it is possible to make an explosion ``this large'' with conventional explosives.

In a previous interview with the AFP, he said that to detonate a huge quantity of TNT to simulate a nuclear blast was in itself quite difficult, as it needs to dig a large underground tunnel and requires detonators to be triggered all at the same time.

He said the seismic data is not a perfect source to rely on to distinguish whether it was a nuclear test or not.

``I've not yet seen any proof that the explosion was nuclear,'' he said. ``Using seismic data, it is very hard, although not impossible, to tell the difference between a conventional explosion and a nuclear one.''

He said the verification process takes time.

``If the test was nuclear, it might be possible to detect material, known as radionuclides, ejected from the test,'' he said. ``It will likely take days before we know whether the explosion really was nuclear.''

As for a prediction that the North would conduct another test in the coming days to escalate tensions further in Northeast Asia, he said: ``If this explosion was conventional, then I see no reason why North Korea could not commit another hoax.''

But he said the test, if it was nuclear, would help North Korea miniaturize its device and also increase its yield. In nuclear arms science, it is difficult to make a small weapons that require miniaturization techniques, he said.

The North hailed its first-ever nuclear test on Monday as a ``great leap forward in the building of a prosperous powerful socialist nation.''

Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said the underground test was successfully performed with ``indigenous wisdom and technology,'' and that no radiation leaked from the test site.

``While attending President Roh Moo-hyun's breakfast meeting with leaders of the governing and opposition parties at Chong Wa Dae, Song Min-soon, chief presidential security secretary, said comprehensive judgment on the success of the nuclear test would be made possible after some two weeks,'' according to presidential spokesman Yoon Tai-young.