North Korea Conducts Third Nuclear Weapons Test
February 12, 2013
North Korea has confirmed that it has conducted a nuclear weapons test, its third. According to the North Korean state news agency, the North used a “miniaturized and lighter nuclear device with greater explosive force than previously” and the test “did not pose any negative impact on the surrounding ecological environment.”
The director of U.S. National Intelligence Agency, James R. Clapper, Jr., issued a statement that North Korea was, in fact, producing nuclear devices with substantial explosive power: “The explosion yield was approximately several kilotons.” North Korea’s first test, in 2006, had a yield of less than one kiloton. By comparison, the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, ending World War II in 1945, had an explosive yield of 15 kilotons.
An atomic blast fills the sky over Nagasaki. The United States dropped the first atomic bombs used in warfare on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, during World War II. (© Getty Images)
Today’s test is the first under North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, and was, according to international affairs experts, conducted in open defiance of China. The Chinese government has warned Kim that setting off nuclear weapons risks confrontation with South Korea, Japan, and the West. (North and South Korea never agreed to a peace treaty after the Korean Conflict ended in 1953 and, officially, remain at war.) In response to the test, China issued a statement expressing its “staunch opposition” but calling for “all parties concerned to respond calmly.” In New York City, members of the United Nations Security Council were called into an emergency meeting.
Kim Jong-un became the leader of North Korea in 2011. (© EPA/KCNA/Alamy Images)
Additional World Book articles:
- Kim Jong-il
- North Korea 2006 (a Back in Time article)
- North Korea 2009 (a Back in Time article)
- North Korea 2011 (a Back in Time article)
