The South Korean top government and military officials held a National Security Council meeting upon detecting a seismic tremor in North Korea that is suspected to be the fifth and hitherto largest-ever nuclear test by the reclusive state Friday morning.
The suspected test took place while South Korean President Park Geun-hye has been abroad and would make the second this year following the fourth detonation of a nuclear device in January that placed Pyongyang under toughest-ever sanctions from the United Nations Security Council.
An official at the defense ministry in Seoul said authorities have detected an artificial earthquake wave at a magnitude of 5.0 around 9.30 a.m. in the area of North Korean Punggye-ri, the same place when the previous nuclear test had been conducted. Friday’s blast is estimated to have generated a yield of 10 kiloton. The underground explosion in January test had yielded 6 kiloton.
Park condemned the action that defied international warnings and cut short her visit to Laos to return home.
At 1:00 p.m. the main Korean Composite Stock Price Index slipped 1.4 percent to 2,034.90 while the secondary Kosdaq index fell 0.7 percent to 662.88. The U.S. dollar jumped 9.9 won, or nearly 1 percent, to 1,100.90 won.
By Kim Sung-hoon
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