Comments on: BREAKING NEWS — Blast, mushroom cloud reported in North Korea

By: About Joel...

About Joel... — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 05:12:32 +0000

What’s that quote about opening your mouth and removing all doubt?
Which is which people? Can you tell? Do you want a hint? Merriam-Webster Online defines intelligence in the following ways: 1 a (1) : the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations :…

By: Simon World

Simon World — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 23:20:52 +0000

Asia by Blog
As seen on Instapundit… Hong Kong, Taiwan and China There’s a fundraiser next Tuesday in HK for Beslan victims. Will AIDS lead China to democracy? Tom looks more deeply into the winners and losers in HK’s recent election. There’s now a HK politici…

By: Aloysius

Aloysius — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 12:28:00 +0000

I have yet to come across an intelligent explanation for this event in North Korea or a scientific analysis. The forest fire explanation is just plain stupid and smells of smoke screen (pun intended). While the dam construction theory may sound plausible anyone in the mining or dam building industry would know this to be another red herring. Yes, huge amounts of explosives are used for these purposes, but this explosions are engineered to cause maximum amount of work in the form of fracturing rock and are extremely precise in limiting damage to areas of interest. These explosions are subsurface and consist of many charges with timed ignitions.

Let?´s just review the facts and their implications:

Seismographs picked this up in Alaska

Mushroom cloud 3-4km in diameter: This is an explosion, no question, and a big one at that. Also, it has to be a surface or near surface event involving and great deal of heat to create a mushroom cloud. Seismic evidence (yet to be corroborated) would rule out the forest fire. It could be a very large conventional explosion, but it could also be a small nuclear device. I have not heard any evidence reported that would rule one or the other out.

Now consider the timing - could hardly be a coincidence.

I have no doubt that a great deal more is already known than is being let out. It should already be known the exact magnitude of the explosion and whether it was nuclear or not.

In my opinion, this was probably not a nuclear blast, but likely related to their nuclear development program. It seems everyone (politicians) are trying to keep it under wraps.

By: Nichi Nichi

Nichi Nichi — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 18:47:10 +0000

By the way, North Korea might have the bomb
I refer you to Marmot’s coverage, which is the best I’ve been able to find online so far. UP

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 09:19:36 +0000

Does anyone know much about “decoupling?” I understand that nuclear detonations can be masked from detection if they occur in a large, underground cavity. The cavity supposedly absorbs the seismic energy and makes detection more difficult. Do we know for certain that the underground missile base at Yongjo-ri was, in fact, a base for missile launch pads? Could the facility have included an empty underground cavity in which to conduct a test of a nuclear explosive device? Might North Korea have exploded a large conventional device above ground in order to cover the underground event? Alternatively, could North Korea have been testing a large, conventional explosive, similar to the Daisy Cutter or MOAB (Mother of All Bombs)?
I find it to be the height of naivete for Condi Rice to suggest that this may have been a forest fire. Talk about whistling past the graveyard, I hope senior officials demonstrate more serious analysis than that.

By: TM Lutas

TM Lutas — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 08:40:53 +0000

In all of this talk about the explosion, I have yet to hear one bit of speculation or information about the idea that there might have been casualties. Some of the scenarios (2 mile clouds of poisonous hydrazine and fuming nitric acid) would imply a huge amount of dead.

By: David

David — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 08:06:49 +0000

thanks (red face)

By: Jing

Jing — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 08:02:22 +0000

Actually, the construction of dams, particularly large ones can require immense ammounts of explosives. I’m not sure how many major rivers besides the Yalu and Han there are in Korea but the explosion that took place near the border was also very close to the Yalu. Perhaps part of the river is indeed being diverted for a hydro-electric project.

There has been talk of diverting the rivers that flow out of Tibet into India and the rest of SE asia. It was speculated that conventional explosives were not enough for the possible dam project(which would be even larger than the three gorges) and that it would require nuclear demolitions. (Environmentalists would probably die of apoplexy)

By: David

David — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 07:08:25 +0000

doesn’t this sound a little like the black spray paint in the tunnel story? Surely nobody uses explosions this big in the construction of damns?

By: Juggertha

Juggertha — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 04:38:57 +0000

The story of “clearing way for a hydroelectric project” just doesn’t ring right. I know they are secretive, but when it comes to announcing great undertaings and the like, NK sem to put themselves out there asap. If this was a giant project like the dam in china.. I don’t think they would have waited so long to brag about it.