ISRO report: 2017 North Korean nuke test 'equivalent to 17 Hiroshimas'

A North Korean nuclear test in 2017 moved the surface of Mount Mantap and was 17 times more powerful than the infamous nuclear attack in Hiroshima that claimed more than one lakh lives in 1945, said a team of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientists. After withdrawing from the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 2003, North Korea held several underground nuclear tests that led to a thermonuclear explosion on September 3, 2017.

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Use of satellite data

According to the research findings by ISRO scientists, published in Geophysical Journal International, the hydrogen bomb was so powerful that it moved the surface of Mount Mantap, the nuclear test location. Due to the unavailability of seismic data, from stations near the test site, the researchers used data from the ALOS-2 satellite and a technique called Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) to measure the changes on the surface above the test chamber resulting from the explosion.

“Satellite-based radars are very powerful tools to gauge changes in earth surface, and allow us to estimate the location and yield of underground nuclear tests. In conventional seismology by contrast, the estimations are indirect and depend on the availability of seismic monitoring stations,” commented Dr Sreejith. 

“InSAR uses multiple radar images to create maps of deformation over time, and allows direct study of the sub-surface processes from space,” said the Royal Astronomical Society. 

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Flank of the peak moved by explosion

InSAR readings revealed that the explosion took place about 540 metres below the summit and about 2.5 kilometres north of the entrance of the tunnel used to access the test chamber. The findings suggest that the explosion shifted the surface of the mountain above the detonation point by a few metres and the flank of the peak moved by up to half a metre. Researchers also predicted that the explosion created a cavity with a radius of 66 metres.

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(With inputs from agencies)