Sunday, May 24, 2009

This one didn't fizzle.

Kilju, North Hamgyong Province, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK; North Korea).

~0950hrs 25.May 2009

Seismic indications of a substantial underground explosion.

Looks like they managed a multi-kT device this time (multi-kT = in excess of 1 kilo-ton of TNT in blasting power; for comparison, the WWII-era weapons were between 15 and 21 kT).

Yonhap News (South Korea) also has sources saying the P.R.Chinese were informed before the test.

5 comments:

Karl Reisman said...

Oh.. Shit.

Well on th ebright side, they managed a second "bang", but from a test device probably far toolarge to put on a missile, and it will take them a few years to get that right.

I see no way out of this impass with that retarded child. "Dear Leader".

Scott

Mr. Bill said...

Seriously? The town is called "Kilju" (killed you)?

Sure, it's only a homonym in English, but still...

L.Douglas Garrett said...

@Karl Reisman

Sorry to mention this, but if the devices in-hand are plutonium based, they've likely already got suitable plans in hand to manufacture a passable missile payload for the systems that can hit Japan...

So let's just say "us" locals have a bit of motivation to put an end to this foolishness.

***

@Mr. Bill

No joke. That town is about 50 miles from the test site, but it *is* the closest one. I confess to having busted up when I first read it.

Then again, any country with a missile called the "Nodong" is pretty much a master of unintentional comedy. (in fairness, it can be Romanized as "Rodong" as well)

Will said...

Does anyone have a solution for nuclear weapons in North Korea that doesn't involve a huge smoking pile of rubble in South Korea and/or Japan?

The North certainly doesn't need IRBMs to wreak havok in Seoul, so even if we had a movie-plot plan to disable their nukes we'd still be looking at a catastrophic loss of life in the event of even a non-nuclear war.

Not only do I fail to come up with a good solution to this problem, I can't see any result short of terrifying.

Karl Reisman said...

The problem seems to be that the North is lookign for any excuse at all to send their army, and then their starving Civilians south to basicaly consume South Krea,and break what they can't eat. Everyone seems terrified of that even if their army is inept. And individual ant can be pretty inept, but a lot of ants in a small space cane be a problem (see: Siafu!)

So the question is what can you do without disturbing the ants nest? So if it's pultonium based they have the possibility of a warhead allready? Greeeaatt.

Scott

P.S. Why hasn't Isreal smoked Iran at this point?" time's running out.