A small earthquake near North Korea’s nuclear test site on Saturday was probably not man-made, the nuclear proliferation watchdog and a South Korean official said, easing fears Pyongyang had exploded another nuclear bomb just weeks after its last one.
China’s Earthquake Administration said the quake was not a nuclear explosion and had the characteristics of a natural tremor. The administration had said earlier the magnitude 3.4 quake detected at 08:29 GMT was a “suspected explosion”.
The CTBTO, or Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty Organization, which monitors nuclear tests, and officials of the South Korean meteorological agency said they believed it was a natural quake.
The Pentagon and the US State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A US intelligence official and US-based non-governmental experts said their initial assessment was that the quake was either natural or connected to North Korea’s latest and largest nuclear test on September 3, and not caused by a new nuclear test.
The seismic activity came just hours before North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, who warned on Thursday that North Korea could consider a hydrogen bomb test of an unprecedented scale over the Pacific, was due to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
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