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Disarmament DocumentationBack to Disarmament Documentation North Korean explosion: news and comments, September 9, 2004South Korean news agencies have reported a "massive explosion" on September 9, 2004 and about 11am local time resulting in a mushroom cloud near North Korea's border with China. The cloud reportedly had a radius of 3.5 to 4 kilometers and was spotted in Kimhyongjik County in North Korea's northernmost inland province of Yanggang. US Secretary of State Colin Powell told ABC television on Sunday 12 September: "There was no indication that was a nuclear event of any kind. Exactly what it was, we're not sure." On Monday 13 September, following a meeting between North Korea's Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun and British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell, the North Korean official news agency, KCNA put out the following statement: Much Ado in S. Korea and U.S. RefutedPyongyang, September 13 (KCNA) -- South Korea is making much ado that there was a big explosion in Kim Hyong Jik County, Ryanggang Province of the DPRK, on Sept. 9, according to a radio report from Seoul. It first claimed that the explosion was presumed to be a nuclear test or a forest fire and the explosion took place in Kim Hyong Jik County and then asserted that it might happen in an area along the Military Demarcation Line, not in Ryanggang Province. This is a preposterous smear campaign. There has been no such accident as explosion in the DPRK recently. Probably, plot-breeders might tell such a sheer lie, taken aback by blastings at construction sites of hydro-power stations in the north of Korea. The story about the explosion is nothing but a sheer fabrication intended to divert elsewhere the world public attention focused on the nuclear-related issue of south Korea for which they are now finding themselves in a dire fix. Sources: Yonhap news agency, BBC News online, Korean Central New Agency of the DPRK. © 2003 The Acronym Institute. |