North Korea announces hydrogen bomb test

[Whatsthematterwithme]

Waking up to this:

www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35240012

Oh Christ.

I feel a bit sick

It's all too easy to forget, in this world of new threats, that the old ones are all still there too.

The big question is whether it is true. South Korea says a small amount of hydrogen may have been added to the device that North Korea tested. Adding a small amount of hydrogen to an atom bomb does not make it a hydrogen bomb. The size of the seismic shock certainly suggests that the device was of similar yield to previous nuclear tests and therefore was not a thermonuclear weapon (or at least, not a successful one).

Bloody nutters.

Ffs.

Yes but why on earth would they use it on anyone. That leader of theirs might seem like a nut job but he's not daft enough to not realise that if he did his country would be immediately annihilated.

It would be a lot easier to criticise other countries for having nuclear if we didn't have them ourselves. But I'm feeling increasingly unsafe. Anyone else feel like the world is just waiting for the edge of Damocles' sword?

Yes bungo. I feel on edge at the moment. I heard this this morning on the news and was just depressed

when the price of oil starts to rise i think thats when we should be scared, thats the main barometer of a global crisis

my dc have been asking me about this, they are 6 and 9 not sure quite what to say to re assure them tbh as a)I don't really understand it all and b) I am scared too :(

Haven't they be testing nuclear weapons for years. They're always posturing one way or another. Is this any different?

Is this any different?

If North Korea's claim is true this would be a significant step in that they would have moved on from nuclear weapons to thermonuclear devices which are much more powerful. However the evidence available suggests that the claim is not true.

Oh shit was my first response.

It's not hugely different. It's the same nuclear threat, but possibly a somewhat larger detonation than before.

May well not be the breakthrough that N Korea is claiming, but still a sign of a productive nuclear programme.

possibly a somewhat larger detonation than before

The seismic event was of similar size to that seen in North Korea's 2013 test of a nuclear device, hence the view that their claim is untrue. If they had indeed tested a thermonuclear device successfully there should have been a much larger seismic event. To quote one expert, "Kim Jong-un is either lying, saying they did a hydrogen test when they didn't, they just used a little bit more efficient fission weapon – or the hydrogen part of the test really didn't work very well or the fission part didn't work very well".