Here's disturbing news from northeast Asia:
A large explosion occurred in the northern part of North Korea, sending a huge mushroom cloud into the air on an important anniversary of the communist regime, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Sunday.The Yonhap news agency, citing an unidentified source in Beijing, said the explosion happened Thursday in Yanggang province near the border with China. The explosion in Kim Hyong Jik county blasted a crater big enough to be noticed by a satellite, the source said.
"We understand that a mushroom-shaped cloud about 3.5 to 4 kilometers (about 2-2 1/2 miles) in diameter was monitored during the explosion," Yonhap quoted an unidentified diplomatic source in Seoul as saying.
North Korea was founded Sept. 9, 1948. Leader Kim Jong Il uses the occasion to stage performances and other events to bolster loyalty among the impoverished North Korean population.
Experts have speculated that North Korea might use a major anniversary to conduct a nuclear-related test, though there was no immediate indication that Thursday's reported explosion was linked to Pyongyang's efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
Kim Hyong Jik is reported to hold a major missile base. North Korea, which has a large missile arsenal and more than 1 million soldiers, is dotted with military installations.
A smaller, but still catastrophic explosion in a train station last spring may have been an assassination attempt against North Korea's deranged dictator Kim Jong Il. This new very large blast is on another scale entirely.
A New York Times story filed just hours earlier may be connected, or might even have been superseded by events:
President Bush and his top advisers have received intelligence reports in recent days describing a confusing series of actions by North Korea that some experts believe could indicate the country is preparing to conduct its first test explosion of a nuclear weapon, according to senior officials with access to the intelligence.While the indications were viewed as serious enough to warrant a warning to the White House, American intelligence agencies appear divided about the significance of the new North Korean actions, much as they were about the evidence concerning Iraq's alleged weapons stockpiles.
Some analysts in agencies that were the most cautious about the Iraq findings have cautioned that they do not believe the activity detected in North Korea in the past three weeks is necessarily the harbinger of a test. A senior scientist who assesses nuclear intelligence says the new evidence "is not conclusive," but is potentially worrisome.
If successful, a test would end a debate that stretches back more than a decade over whether North Korea has a rudimentary arsenal, as it has boasted in recent years. Some analysts also fear that a test could change the balance of power in Asia, perhaps leading to a new nuclear arms race there.
In interviews on Friday and Saturday, senior officials were reluctant to provide many details of the new activities they have detected, but some of the information appears to have come from satellite intelligence.
One official with access to the intelligence called it "a series of indicators of increased activity that we believe would be associated with a test," saying that the "likelihood" of a North Korean test had risen significantly in just the past four weeks.
UPDATE: CNN reports that the cloud is not a nuke, which is good news if true.
A large cloud that appeared over North Korea in satellite images several days ago was not the result of a nuclear explosion, according to a U.S. official. The U.S. official said the cloud could be the result of a forest fire.Posted by Alan at September 12, 2004 12:43 AMSouth Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-yong said the government was aware of the reports and is checking them. "I have no information about the size of the damage of the explosion," he said on Sunday, according to Yonhap.
Chung also said he believed there was no correlation between the explosion and reports of North Korea preparing for a possible nuclear test.
None of North Korea's known nuclear sites are in the country's northernmost provinces.
Yonhap reported the explosion happened in Yanggang province along the Chinese border, the site of Yongjori Missile Base -- a large facility with an underground missile firing range.