Daily News in English About Korea (original) (raw)

With the dispatch of Pyongyang-based diplomats to the construction site of the Samsu Hydroelectric Plant, it appears that the process of getting to the bottom of the Ryanggang "explosion" is drawing to a close.

In fact, it has been learned that Korean and U.S. intelligence officials have virtually concluded that the problematic black cloud detected on satellite photos was a strange shaped cloud resulting from a natural phenomenon, and that there was no explosion in the area around Ryanggang Province.

This is because the strange-shaped cloud, which was first suspected of being a sign of an explosion, may very well have been a natural cumulonimbus cloud, and what's more, no seismic waves were detected from the Ryanggang Province region between Sept. 8 and Sept. 9.

The Korea Earthquake Research Center said, "On Aug. 21, we detected seismic waves of 2.7 on the Richter scale from the Samsu region of Ryanggang County, but after that, the only record we have of seismic waves from the whole of Ryanggang Province were seismic waves we detected at 11:24 p.m. Sept. 8 from the Mt. Baekdu area, about 100~120km away from the suspected blast site."

Because of this, government officials explain that it was only natural that the Arirang 1 satellite would fail to detect signs of an explosion when it succeeded in taking photographs of Kim Hyong-jik County, Ryanggang Province on Wednesday.

A satellite picture of massive clouds that caused speculation that an explosion took place in Ryanggang Province, North Korea. Unification Minister Chung Dong-young looks at the picture taken in the morning on Sept. 9 and other related documents at a parliamentary unification, diplomatic and commercial committee meeting.

People are asking, however, that is this were the case, why did North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun rush to explain to British Foreign Office official Bill Rammell that the explosion was demolition work for a hydroelectric power station while granted rare permission to a diplomatic team to visit the blast site?

A government official deduced Friday, "As the Korean media and international community took interest, the North Korean authorities, too, also took interest in seeing whether something happened... It seems that when they couldn't find any incident related to an explosion, they explained that if there were an explosion in Ryanggang Province, it must have been demolition work for building a hydroelectric power station."

On Monday, North Korea's official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) reported, "(In the South), they are saying senseless things like the site of the explosion was in Kim Hyong-jik County, and then even at the Military Demarcation Line, which isn't in Ryanggang Province," hinting that the North Korean authorities may have tried to locate signs of an explosion all the way to the Military Demarcation Line.

It is possible to deduce that North Korea, confused by all the suspicion raised by the media, went looking for an explosion, and when it could find any at all, it simply tried to head off further speculation in its own way by announcing an explanation that if there was an explosion in Ryanggang Province, it would have been demolition work to build a hydroelectric plant.

Lee Hee-il, head of the Korea Earthquake Research Center, said, "When we consider the distance to Kim Hyong-jik County, we wouldn't be able to detect seismic waves at our detection center if the explosions were small-scale ones using under 1 ton of TNT."

He said that if demolition work were conducted at a hydroelectric power station construction site in another part of Ryanggang Province other than Kim Hyong-jik County using small-scale explosives, it would not be detected in the South. In North Korea's case, emphasis is being placed on construction of small-scale hydroelectric power stations producing less that 1,000kW.

On Aug. 21, seismic waves measuring 2.7 on the Richter scale were detected coming from the Samsu region, which has been designated by the North Korean authorities at the site of the Samsu Hydroelectic Power Station.

As for the truth of the explosion rumors, we should be able to know precisely what happened only after the diplomatic team comes back from Samsu Hydroelectric Plant, even if it 80km away from Kim Hyeong-jik County.

Nevertheless, it has been indicated that the government's ability to respond to such incidents needs to be strengthened, as its response in this incident was confused; it was unable to make a judgment even with relevant information obtained at an early stage.