North Korea suspected of conducting a nuclear test
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea said it suspects a nuclear test caused an earthquake Tuesday in North Korea just north of a site where the country conducted two previous atomic tests.
North Korea didn't immediately confirm whether the tremor resulted from a widely anticipated third nuclear test, though an analyst in Seoul said a nuclear detonation was a "high possibility."
A U.N. nuclear test monitoring organization detected what it called an "unusual seismic event" in North Korea.
The South Korean Defense Ministry, which raised its military alert level after the quake, said it was trying to determine whether it was a test. Nuclear blasts can create tremors but they are distinct from those caused by natural earthquakes.
Kim Min-seok, a South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman, also told reporters that North Korea informed China and the United States of its plans to conduct a nuclear test. It was not clear when Pyongyang told Beijing and Washington.
The U.S. Geological Survey as well as earthquake monitoring stations in South Korea detected an earthquake just north of a site where North Korea conducted its second nuclear test in 2009, according to the government-funded Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources.
"There is a high possibility that North Korea has conducted a nuclear test," said Chi Heoncheol, an earthquake specialist at the institute. Chi said a magnitude 3.9 magnitude earthquake and a magnitude 4.5 earthquake were detected in the North's 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.
Facebook
Twitter
Mobile
RSS
Most CommentedMost Popular
A forceful Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood announced at a tense press conference Thursday that David Sal Silva, whose death earlier this month raised questions about use of force by deputies, died as a result of hypertensive heart disease and was not only intoxicated but had methamphetamine...
The death of a man in custody following a prolonged struggle with Kern County Sheriff's deputies and CHP officers and the subsequent fracas over confiscated witness cellphones have gained international attention and raised concerns here that the incidents could tarnish the county's emerging...
The Kern County Sheriff's Office is out of control. That's one conclusion many people will draw based on the events of the past two weeks and in the context of recent years.
Sheriff’s investigators served a search warrant on Kern Medical Center and the Mary K. Shell Mental Health Center seeking medical records to find possible reasons for David Sal Silva’s behavior prior to and during his encounter with law enforcement, The Californian learned Friday.
Blood stains are still visible on the sidewalk at the corner of Flower Street and Palm Drive, where a Bakersfield man struggled with as many as nine officers and later died this week.
Classes were canceled at Bakersfield High School Monday after three small bottle bomb explosions struck campus, authorities said.
David Sal Silva’s screams seem like they will never stop.
Ridgeview High School star quarterback Kamari Cotton-Moya, 18, was shot in the arm just after midnight Sunday morning when gunfire broke out at a large party in east Bakersfield.