Tezos

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Creator

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Description

The first nuclear weapons test by North Korea (DRK) took place underground 18 years ago, on 9th October 2006 at the Punggye-ri test site, in the mountainous terrain in Kilju County, North Hamgyong Province. The blast location was triangulated to 41.28505°N, 129.1084°E, where a plutonium bomb was detonated with a yield of well below 1 kiloton. The anomalously small value was indicative of either the test of a sophisticated tactical missile payload device or (much more likely) a partial failure of a conventional implosion bomb with incomplete detonation (a fizzle). . The unavoidable interdependence of civilian (electrical power generation) and military (weapons material production) technology was strikingly illustrated by the path to DRK becoming a nuclear-armed nation. The Korean weapons program had its earlier origin in the casual proliferation of 'peaceful' nuclear technology in the sixties and seventies, when direct assistance from the USSR helped build and commission the first research reactor at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Centre. Subsequently, Chinese and then Pakistan's weapons-oriented nuclear technology was shared with the DRK. Although its weapons program dated back to the 1980s, in 1994 in an attempt to restrain the regime the USA under Clinton bizarrely agreed to supply light-water moderated reactors in return for the DRK promising to stop operation of the existing graphite-moderated reactors which were producing weapons-grade plutonium, a deal which was childishly naive. . The Punggye-r test site was built in the early 2000s, and comprised about 17 km of underground tunnels. In late 2017 the test of a 300 kiloton tritium-boosted fusion-fission weapon caused extensive damage and tunnel collapse to the complex, and the site was partially decommissioned in 2018 by demolishing the three separate tunnel entrances. . North Korea has carried out 6 nuclear weapons tests, and possesses an estimated 50 nuclear warheads. . . . "Test Anniversary" edition issued in support of nuclear disarmament: donate to https://cnduk.org/ . The original pen plot of the topography of the region was made using Stabilo pen and AxiDraw SE/A3, on 180g Bristol paper.

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