Earthquake detected in North Korea; not clear if nuke test

“The United States and Japan have requested emergency Security Council consultations for tomorrow morning regarding North Korea’s alleged nuclear test”, Hagar Chemali, spokeswoman for the USA mission, said in a statement.

Whether an H-bomb or not, it was North Korea’s fourth nuclear test and marked a striking act of defiance that flew in the face of enemies and allies alike who have warned Pyongyang it would pay a steep price for moving forward with its nuclear weapons programme.

North Korea said Wednesday it has conducted a hydrogen bomb test – a move that would put the country a step closer toward improving its still-limited nuclear arsenal.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has now declared North Korea’s hydrogen bomb test as a threat to his nation’s safety.

The North Koreans have signaled for some time the test was a possibility, said Mike Chinoy, with the U.S.-China Institute at the University of Southern California.

Price said the United States will continue to “protect and defend our allies in the region”, and will “respond appropriately to any and all North Korean provocations”.

In an initial reaction the foreign ministry in Beijing said it “firmly opposes” the nuclear test, which was carried out “irrespective of the global community’s opposition”.

The cabinet in Tokyo was also holding an urgent meeting of security officials.

The head of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization Lassina Zerbo says in a statement: “Our International Monitoring System detected an unusual seismic event in the Korean Peninsula at latitude 41.27 longitude 129.10”.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake was recorded at a depth of 10km, 376 km NE of Pyonyang around 5:30 tonight.

State media said the bomb, which can be thousands of times more powerful than atomic bombs, was detonated at 10 a.m. local time.

One Western diplomat said that if the latest North Korean nuclear test was confirmed, council members would seek to expand existing United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang.

Pyongyang is thought to have a handful of crude nuclear weapons.

North Korean nuclear tests are worrying because each new blast is seen as pushing North Korea’s scientists and engineers closer to their goal of building a bomb small enough to place on a missile that can reach the USA mainland.

Since the elevation of young leader Kim Jong Un in 2011, North Korea has ramped up angry rhetoric against the leaders of Washington and Seoul and the U.S.-South Korean annual military drills it considers invasion preparation.

South Korea has also said a fourth test would be a watershed moment that would warrant a response, Chinoy said.

It came shortly after China raised questions about what it called a “suspected explosion” and South Korea called an “artificial natural disaster”. It gave the depth as zero kilometres and the magnitude as 4.9.

Since then it claims to have tested three nuclear devices, the most recent in 2013.