North Korea carries out nuclear test

A South Korean news agency has said that North Korea test-fired a short-range missile, a report that came shortly after the communist nation declared that it successfully conducted a nuclear test today.

Yonhap said North Korea fired a ground-to-air missile with a range of 80 miles from its northeastern Musudan-ri launch site.

The regime also launched a long-range rocket from that site on April 5. South Korea’s military said it was checking the report.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency called today's nuclear test "part of measures to bolster its nuclear deterrent for self-defence".

In South Korea, President Lee’s spokesman, Lee Dong-kwan, confirmed that a nuclear test may have been carried out in the North.

Seismologists from the US, South Korea and Japan reported earthquakes in an northeastern area, where North Korea conducted a nuclear test in 2006.

A 4.7-magnitude earthquake was registered in northeastern North Korea at 9.54am (12.54am Irish time), the US Geological Survey said.

The quake, measured at a depth of six miles underground, occurred 40 miles northwest of the city of Kimchaek, the USGS said.

The Japan Meteorological Agency also said it detected seismic activity this morning.

“We are checking whether they were due to a nuclear test,” agency official Gen Aoki said in Tokyo.

In Seoul, the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources reported a 4.5-magnitude quake in Kilju in North Hamgyong Province.

North Korea also carried out a nuclear test in October 2006 in Kilju, a test that drew sanctions from the United Nations and prompted five other nations to push negotiations on a nuclear disablement-for-aid pact with North Korea.

North Korea, incensed by UN Security Council condemnation of its April 5 rocket launch, warned last month that it would restart it rogue nuclear programme, conduct a second atomic test as a follow-up to a 2006 test, and carry out long-range missile tests.

Today, the regime boasted that the test was conducted “on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology of its control”.

Today’s tests raise the stakes in the tense international standoff over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.

“If North Korea carried out a nuclear test, it would clearly violate UN Security Council resolutions,” Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told reporters in Tokyo.

“We will definitely not tolerate it,” he said.

Japan will request an emergency UN Security Council meeting to discuss North Korea, Vice Foreign Minister Mitoji Yabunaka said.