SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea appears to be “restoring” its Punggye-ri nuclear site, South Korea said, with symptoms of a new structure detected in satellite imagery for the first time since it closed in 2018.
North Korea has not tested a nuclear bomb since 2017, but has hinted that it will possibly resume testing as denuclearization talks with the United States and its allies are still stalled.
Here’s what we know about North Korea’s well-known nuclear control site:
The Punggye-ri nuclear control site is located in a mountainous region at the northeastern tip of the county, about a hundred kilometers (62 miles) from the border with China.
North Korea conducted its six nuclear tests at the site, in 2006, 2009, 2013, January 2016, September 2016 and September 2017. Analysts doubted North Korea’s claim that the January 2016 explosion was its first thermonuclear bomb, but it is most likely that such a weapon was tested in 2017 in a much larger explosion than previous tests.
All tests were carried out in tunnels dug deep in the mountains. There are 3 visual entrances known as South Portal, East Gate and West Gate.
Entrances to those tunnels were destroyed in front of a small foreign media organization invited to witness the demolition when North Korea shut down the site in 2018, signaling that its nuclear force was complete.
Pyongyang has publicly invited foreign media to witness the destruction, but also technical inspectors, which has left disarmament experts and nuclear scientists doubting the effectiveness or permanence of the destruction.
The shutdown has affected North Korea’s nuclear weapons arsenal or its ability to make nuclear weapons, however, a lack of testing may hamper its ability to deploy reliable, deliverable thermonuclear warheads, according to the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington (ISIS).
The main mountain will be able to be used for additional testing, but it is possible that other nearby mountains will be used, ISIS said in a 2018 report. North Korea may also conduct new tests in a completely different location.
Images captured through an advertising satellite in early March showed signs of activity at the Punggye-ri site, adding the structure of a new structure, the repair of another structure and what would possibly be wood and sawdust, experts at California-based James Martin. The Centre for Non-Proliferation Studies (CNS) said in a report: “Recovery activity has been detected from a component of the tunnels. . . has been detected,” South Korea’s military said in a later statement, without specifying the type of activity.
Since the last explosion in 2017, experts have reported a series of small earthquakes near the nuclear control base as a sign that the giant explosion had destabilized the region, which had never before recorded herbal earthquakes. reused in the long term, but long-term verification is likely limited to tunnels not used in the past, analysts said.
(Reporting via Josh Smith. Editing via Gerry Doyle)
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