North Korea in the News. Tunnel collapse at North Korea nuke facility

V4

V4

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE
200 dead

How much nuclear leak or damage still unknown
 
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C

CoorsLight

Well-known member
Weird. I saw the headline on Business Insider around 545AM, and now it's nowhere on the "front [age." It is searchable, though:

http://www.businessinsider.com/nort...-tunnel-collapse-reportedly-kills-200-2017-10

Summary: The test site where NK tested its H-bomb has been having seismic events and landslides. There was a catastrophic collapse of a tunnel in the test site. There may be a leak of radioactive material, which could trigger response from China if they are affected.
 
mototireguy

mototireguy

Moto Tire Veteran
Given the ultra tight control of what news gets released from within NK (especially embarrassing news) how did this news get out and how accurate can it be?
 
S

Schnellbandit

I see 4 lights!
This has been predicted for quite a while, no timing to it just a lack of concern by NK towards safety when making WMDs.

We didn't do it, no one else did it, they did it to themselves unless all the previous reports were wrong.

How did the info get out? Satellites would see it. The number of people dead? They yell it across the Yalu river.
 
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afm199

afm199

Well-known member
CoorsLight said:
Weird. I saw the headline on Business Insider around 545AM, and now it's nowhere on the "front [age." It is searchable, though:

http://www.businessinsider.com/nort...-tunnel-collapse-reportedly-kills-200-2017-10

Summary: The test site where NK tested its H-bomb has been having seismic events and landslides. There was a catastrophic collapse of a tunnel in the test site. There may be a leak of radioactive material, which could trigger response from China if they are affected.
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I doubt it will affect China. There could be a release, but the problems with radioactivity from nuclear blasts tend to deal with the fallout, which is not an issue. It's why ground blasts are so bad. Air blasts create relatively little fallout (irradiated dirt and other material), Ground blasts create huge amounts, and underground blasts are contained. It could certainly impact the area there, but not China.

There's also a lot of question as to whether it was an "H bomb" (fusion weapon) or just a boosted fission bomb. It was pretty small.
 
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CoorsLight

Well-known member
afm199 said:
I doubt it will affect China. There could be a release, but the problems with radioactivity from nuclear blasts tend to deal with the fallout, which is not an issue. It's why ground blasts are so bad. Air blasts create relatively little fallout (irradiated dirt and other material), Ground blasts create huge amounts, and underground blasts are contained. It could certainly impact the area there, but not China.

There's also a lot of question as to whether it was an "H bomb" (fusion weapon) or just a boosted fission bomb. It was pretty small.
Click to expand...

To my understanding, the 2016 test was likely a souped up atomic bomb, but the seismic scale of the 2017 test was too big for that; it was a thermonuclear explosion. Is that being debated?
 
afm199

afm199

Well-known member
CoorsLight said:
To my understanding, the 2016 test was likely a souped up atomic bomb, but the seismic scale of the 2017 test was too big for that; it was a thermonuclear explosion. Is that being debated?
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Every one of the test up to the 2017 were in the 2-16 kt range, IIRC. (Roughly Hiroshima/Nagasaki). One of the 2016 tests was a bit larger, 16-25kt.

The 2017 test was 70-280 kt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons_tests_of_North_Korea

The largest fission weapon the US had was the SOB bomb, way over 500 kt, perhaps as much as a megaton. A guy named Ted Taylor designed it (read "The Curve of Binding Energy", John McPhee for a great read). Taylor also designed the smallest weapons we had 1-2 kt. So fission weapons have been far larger than the NK 2017 weapon. In fact, Taylor said he could design a multiple megaton boosted device, but it would have been extremely wasteful of fissile material.

Our current weaponry is both boosted weapons and fusion (H bomb) weapons. The fusion devices run from 400 kiloton to 5 megaton IIRC. Any larger and it's just a waste of time.

If the North Korean bomb was actually an H bomb ( fission/fusion, or fission fusion fission), it was a pretty small and weak one. It is quite possible/likely that it was a successful "boosted" fission device.

In either case, the NK's have the tech now for bigger weapons. Whether they can make them small enough to deliver via missile is in question.
 
Smash Allen

Smash Allen

Banned
afm199 said:
Every one of the test up to the 2017 were in the 2-16 kt range, IIRC. (Roughly Hiroshima/Nagasaki). One of the 2016 tests was a bit larger, 16-25kt.

The 2017 test was 70-280 kt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons_tests_of_North_Korea

The largest fission weapon the US had was the SOB bomb, way over 500 kt, perhaps as much as a megaton. A guy named Ted Taylor designed it (read "The Curve of Binding Energy", John McPhee for a great read). Taylor also designed the smallest weapons we had 1-2 kt. So fission weapons have been far larger than the NK 2017 weapon. In fact, Taylor said he could design a multiple megaton boosted device, but it would have been extremely wasteful of fissile material.

Our current weaponry is both boosted weapons and fusion (H bomb) weapons. The fusion devices run from 400 kiloton to 5 megaton IIRC. Any larger and it's just a waste of time.

If the North Korean bomb was actually an H bomb ( fission/fusion, or fission fusion fission), it was a pretty small and weak one. It is quite possible/likely that it was a successful "boosted" fission device.

In either case, the NK's have the tech now for bigger weapons. Whether they can make them small enough to deliver via missile is in question.
Click to expand...

thanks for this post, very informative :)
 
Bay Arean

Bay Arean

Well-known member
"Tired mountain syndrome." Love it.

And I'm sure southern China is looking forward to radiation leakage, too!
 
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