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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Bigger boom than Kimchee admits |
| 2004-05-17 |
| Via the Prof: Ryongchon Explosion Eight Times as Great as North Claims Japan’s Kyodo News, citing numerous diplomatic sources in Vienna, reported Saturday that the force of April 22’s train explosion at the North’s Ryonchon Station was about that of an earthquake measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale, which would have required about 800 tons of TNT -- about eight times that officially announced by North Korea. The sources referred to earthquake figures gotten by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization. The North’s official Korean Central News Agency had previously reported that the destructive power of the blast was that of 100 tons of dynamite, and explained that the accident was caused by "the electrical contact caused by carelessness during the shunting of wagons loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer and tank wagons". The CTBTO feels that the cause of the explosion may differ from the North’s explanation, and noted the explosion might have been caused by highly-explosive materials like military-use fuel going off. Officials at the CTBTO plan to look into the causes of the accident. The CTBTO said the explosion at Ryongchon was observed using seismological observation stations in Korea, Japan, the United States and Russia. The stations were built to detect nuclear tests. In Japan’ case, seismological observation stations in Nagano, Oita and Okinawa picked up the Ryongchon blast. The CTBTO collected data from various observation posts, analyzed the data at its International Data Center and estimated the size of the blast. About a week after the explosion, it provided the data to CTBT member states. The CTBT, written in 1996, has to be ratified by all its signatories for it to be effective, but 44 nuclear and potentially-nuclear states like the United States, China, Pakistan, India and North Korea have put off ratifying the document, which is now on the verge of collapse. |
| Posted by:Anonymous2U |
| #4 As I recall from a Tom Clancy novel where the nuke fizzled at Denver stadium, there wasn't much of a crater and no shock wave. There was sufficient nuetron flux to fry the 70,000 attendees at the game, but a guy in a Brinks truck was protected by being behind bags of nickels! In that ficticious case the main charge did go, but it discharged over too long of a time period because the bad guys failed to renew the "booster". |
| Posted by: Craig 2004-05-17 4:04:48 PM |
| #3 Sorry, the term is fizzle as in a nuclear weapon that has only the trigger exploding. |
| Posted by: DG 2004-05-17 1:39:02 PM |
| #2 Forgive my ignorance, but how big would a fissle be? |
| Posted by: DG 2004-05-17 1:33:32 PM |
| #1 Kim Jong-Il wants the world to know that he can make an earthquake. However he won't leap tall buildings at a single bound because he's afraid of heights. (Remember, won't fly in a airplane) |
| Posted by: BigEd 2004-05-17 11:48:36 AM |