Kim Jong-un reeling after at least four earthquakes rock key North Korean nuclear site
A SERIES of earthquakes have been detected near North Korea's nuclear testing site, according to South Korean monitoring bodies.
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At least four earthquakes were detected by the Korea Meteorological Administration, based in Seoul, with the most recent detected on Tuesday. It was a 1.5 magnitude earthquake with an epicentre around 22 miles from the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the northeast region of North Korea.
Two 2.3 magnitude earthquakes were detected in the area on Monday, and another, measuring 3.1, was reported on Friday.
The facility in northeast North Korea is the only known facility in the authoritarian state to carry out nuclear testing.
The most recent nuclear weapons test at the facility was in September 2017, when the regime detonated its sixth nuclear bomb.
The largest one to date tested by the country, authorities in North Korea claimed it was a thermonuclear weapon.
In the weeks following that detonation, experts recorded a number of tremors and landslides near the testing site.
They are seen as evidence of nuclear testing destabilising the area, as it had never previously been associated with naturally-occurring earthquakes.
The nuclear testing may have irrevocably changed the geology of the region around the site, experts in South Korea warned in 2020.
Others raised concerns over potential leakage of radioactive material if the site was operational once more.
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It is not unheard of for nuclear testing to prompt changes in seismic activity.
Frank Pabian, a retired analyst at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US, added this has been observed at other test sites, such as in the American state of Nevada and the Kazakh Semipalatinsk site in the former Soviet Union.
He told Reuters: "Such seismicity should not prevent the Punggye-ri nuclear test from being used again in the future.
"The only difference being that any future testing would be limited to only previously unused tunnels."
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Those tunnels were used as a demonstration to the world's media in 2018 by the North Korean regime.
The entrances were blown up, in front of a small collection of journalists, when the site was closed.
Pyongyang then barred international experts from confirming or inspecting the closure of the site.
They added earlier this year that North Korea is considering resuming nuclear testing after talks with the West over nuclear weaponry stalled.
North Korea has said it does not consider itself bound by a moratorium on testing long-range ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons.
However, in the years since the site's closure, satellite imagery analysed by experts has highlighted little evidence of resumed efforts at Punggye-ri.