It’s too early to say. But at first glance, it’s already starting to look like Russia vs. the rest on the yield of North Korea’s second nuclear test:
Kim Sung-han, a security expert at Korea University in Seoul, estimated the test had a power of one kiloton of explosives, slightly more than the 0.8 kiloton detonation reported in 2006. If correct, that would be a fraction of the size of the blasts from American bombs that destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945 — themselves considered small by current standards.But Alexander Drobyshevsky, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, told RIA-Novosti news agency offered a different estimate, saying that the force of the blast was 10 to 20 kilotons.
We’ve been here before. Why?
Update: Martin Kalinowski of Universität Hamburg has a higher estimate than does Kim Sung-han, but he’s still well south of the numbers given by the Russian Ministry of Defense:
Several seismic observatories all over the world recorded an event that took place in the North East of the country. The U.S. Geological Survey determined the event time as 00:54:43 UTC. The location is close to the first nuclear test. The seismic body wave magnitude of 4.7 is larger as compared to the value of 4.1±0.1 in 2006. According to the assessment of Martin Kalinowski, this corresponds to an explosive yield of about 3 to 8 kilotons TNT equivalent with a most likely yield of 4 kt TNT. In 2006 the yield was unexpectedly low with an estimate of 0.5 to 0.8 kt TNT.
I’ll add more as it pops up, time permitting.
Later update: As usual, all the action is at ACW. Jeff has located three estimates via the International Seismological Centre’s Online Bulletin. They cluster around 2 to 6 kt. Notably, the result from the Geophysical Survey of the Russian Academy of Sciences is basically in line with the others, and not with the announcement of the Ministry of Defense, which appears to float free of all observed data.
For whatever it’s worth, Kim Sung-han’s estimate — as reported in the NY Times and cited above — is also an outlier, but in the other direction.
Geoff has some thoughts about the potential implications of a ~4kt test for weaponization.
Andreas says it took place at a second test site, not far from the first.
Comments
Allen Thomson May 25, 11:59 AM
I checked the official Ministry of Defense announcement to be sure there wasn’t some sort of translation glitch. There wasn’t:
http://www.mil.ru/info/1069/details/index.shtml?id=62972
Новости
25.05.2009 года
Сообщение Управления пресс-службы и информации МО РФ
25 мая 2009 года в 4 часа 54 минуты 41 секунду по московскому времени Службой специального контроля Министерства обороны Российской Федерации на территории КНДР, в 80 километрах северо-западнее города Килчжу, зарегистрирован подземный ядерный взрыв мощностью от 10 до 20 килотонн.
В настоящее время Служба специального контроля МО РФ продолжает мониторинг развития ситуации в режиме реального времени.
“от 10 до 20 килотонн” is indeed and exactly “from 10 (up) to 20 kilotons.”
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