A series of small tremors, believed to be natural, was recorded near a sealed nuclear weapons test facility in North Korea, according to South Korean authorities, which underscores the region’s geological instability, while Pyongyang has indicated it will not is unlikely to resume testing of such weapons for the first time since 2017.
Seismologists recorded four tremors in the area in five days, according to the South Korean National Weather Service (KMA) in Seoul.
The latest quake, measuring 2.5 on the Richter scale, was recorded this morning and had its epicenter at a distance of 36 kilometers from the Pung-ri nuclear test site. Two 2.3 magnitude earthquakes were recorded on Monday, one 3.1 on Friday.
Pung-ri (northeast) is the only known nuclear weapons test facility in North Korea. The last known weapons test took place in September 2017, when Pyongyang had tested the sixth in a row and most powerful of all its previous nuclear bombs, a thermonuclear weapon against it.
In the weeks following the blast, experts had spotted a series of tremors and landslides near the base, indicating that the blast had destabilized the area geologically, where natural earthquakes were already being recorded.
In the aftermath of an earthquake in 2020, South Korean government experts had estimated that nuclear weapons tests had permanently altered the region’s geology, and some feared there could be radioactivity contamination if Pyongyang decided to use the facility again.
Seismic activity caused by nuclear weapons tests is not uncommon, and has also been reported in other nuclear test sites – such as Nevada, the United States, and Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan in the former USSR, according to Frank Pambian, a retired Los Angeles analyst. Alamos National Laboratory of the USA.
“This kind of seismicity does not prevent the possible use of the Punggeri test site in the future,” he said, adding that “the only difference is that future tests would be carried out in previously unused galleries.”
The entrances to the galleries had been blown up, with a small group of foreign media envoys invited to cover the demolition when North Korea closed the facility in 2018, declaring that it now had a complete nuclear arsenal. Pyongyang has rejected calls to allow foreign experts to enter the country to verify the closure of the facility.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has recently said that he no longer considers that he is bound by the moratorium on nuclear tests, which he had unilaterally declared. Pyongyang also hinted in January that it was considering resuming tests of long-range nuclear weapons and / or ballistic missiles, such as the so-called intercontinental ballistic missiles, due to a complete lack of progress in talks with the United States and its allies.
Since its closure, organizations that systematically monitor North Korea’s nuclear weapons activities say satellite imagery shows no significant increase in activity in Pungeri, other than routine security patrols and maintenance work.
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