By Daniel WOOLLS
Washington (AFP) Sept 24, 2017
A shallow 3.5-magnitude earthquake which hit North Korea near the country's nuclear test site on Saturday was not the result of a fresh nuclear test, China's seismic service said, after initially reporting a "suspected explosion".
The China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC) said in a statement late Saturday that study of infrasonic data determined "the incident is not a nuclear explosion, but had the nature of a natural earthquake".
The Chinese Academy of Sciences also released a report saying the earthquake was likely a "lagged collapse earthquake", echoing international experts' hypotheses that the earthquake was a delayed repercussion of a previous detonation.
The North's last nuclear test, on September 3, was the country's most powerful, triggering a much stronger 6.3-magnitude quake that was felt across the border in China.
Monitoring groups estimate the nuclear test had a yield of 250 kilotons, which is 16 times the size of the US bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.
Lavrov says US will not strike North Korea
"The Americans won't carry out a strike on (North) Korea because it's not that they suspect, they know for sure that it has nuclear bombs," Lavrov said in an interview with Russia's NTV television aired Sunday.
more
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/US_warplanes_fly_off_N_Korea_coast_in_new_show_of_force_999.html
