North Korea said it had "completely" dismantled its nuclear test site Thursday in a carefully choreographed move portrayed by the isolated regime as a goodwill gesture ahead of a potential summit with US President Donald Trump.
Invited foreign journalists at the scene described a series of explosions throughout the day, three of them in entry tunnels to the underground facility, followed by blasts that demolished a nearby barracks and other structures at the Punggye-ri test site in the country's northeast.
"There was a huge explosion, you could feel it. Dust came at you, the heat came at you. It was extremely loud," Tom Cheshire, a journalist for Sky News who was among those invited to attend the ceremony, wrote on the British broadcaster's website.
The Punggye-ri test facility is buried inside a mountain in North Hamgyong province, near the border with China and is North Korea's only known nuclear test site.
It has been the staging ground for all six of the North's nuclear tests, including its latest and by far most powerful one in September last year, which Pyongyang said was an H-bomb.
In a statement North Korea's nuclear weapons agency said the site had been dismantled "completely... to ensure transparency of the discontinuance of nuclear test(ing)."
South Korea welcomed the move.
"(We) expect it to serve as a chance for complete denuclearisation going forward," Noh Kyu-duk, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters.
- Concession or stunt? -
Experts are divided over whether the demolition will render the site useless. Sceptics say the facility has already outlived its usefulness with six successful nuclear tests in the bag and can be quickly rebuilt if needed.
North Korea did not invite any independent observers from overseas.
But others say the fact that Pyongyang agreed to destroy the site without preconditions and without asking for something in return from Washington suggests the regime is serious about change.
Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Dongguk University, said the demolition "cannot be dismissed as a media stunt".
"It is significant that North Korea has backed up its commitment to denuclearisation with concrete action," he told AFP, saying it made the summit more likely.
In its statement North Korea said two tunnels at the site were "ready for use for carrying out very powerful underground nuclear tests at any time" before they were destroyed.
Trump is due to meet his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12 for high stakes talks aimed at ridding the reclusive state of its newly acquired nuclear weapons and improving ties after decades of animosity.
The summit announcement came after months of unusually cordial diplomacy between the historic foes brokered by Seoul.
But the newfound bonhomie and the meeting's potential success has been thrown into doubt in recent days with both Washington and Pyongyang raising the prospect of cancelling the talks and trading threats.
- Gulf in expectations -
Trump has said a final say on whether the summit will go ahead is likely to come "next week" but has touted the talks as a golden opportunity for Pyongyang.
"We will see what happens. There is a good chance. And it would be a great thing for North Korea," he told Fox News in an interview recorded before the nuclear test site demolition.
Politically, Trump has invested heavily in the success of the planned summit, so privately most US officials, as well as outside observers, believe it will go ahead.
Hand-picked US aides travelled to Singapore this week where they are expected to meet their North Korean counterparts and iron out details of the meeting.
But as the date draws nearer, the gulf in expectations between the two sides is coming into sharp relief.
Washington has made it clear it wants to see the "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation" of the North.
But Pyongyang has vowed it will never give up its nuclear deterrence until it feels safe from what it terms US aggression.
"I would like to have it (denuclearisation) done immediately," Trump told Fox. "Physically, a phase-in may be necessary," he added, leaving a window open for negotiating a more gradual disarmament.
A handful of journalists from China, the US, Britain, Russia and South Korea were invited to attend the demolition ceremony.
Their journey to the remote site involved some 14 hours of travelling by train, bus and finally a short hike -- a vivid illustration of the impoverished country's notoriously decrepit infrastructure.
Agence France-Presse is one of a number of major media organisations not invited to cover the demolition.
The nuclear test site North Korea decided to destroy
Seoul (AFP) May 24, 2018 - Huge explosions reportedly shook North Korea's only known nuclear test site on Thursday, in a ceremony that Pyongyang said had "completely" destroyed the facility near the Chinese border.
The Punggye-ri test site, located beneath a mountain in the far northeast, hosted all six nuclear tests Pyongyang has conducted -- most recently last September.
Earlier this month the North announced it would blow up the site's access tunnels in front of invited foreign media.
The announcement came as the diplomatic push for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons gathered pace with an unprecedented summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump slated for June 12 in Singapore.
Here's some of what we know about the secretive place:
- Ideal environment -
The site is located deep inside mountains in North Hamgyong province, which borders China.
Surrounded by high, craggy peaks and carved deep into a granite mountain more than 2,000 metres (6,500 feet) high, the test site is said to be an ideal venue to withstand the huge forces unleashed by nuclear blasts.
The site's location only became known in 2006 when the North conducted its first nuclear test under Kim's late father Kim Jong Il.
Activities have been closely watched through satellite imagery since then.
Tunnels can be seen entering the site from different directions. The first test was staged in the eastern tunnel, the second and third in the western tunnel and the remainder in the northern tunnel, according to intelligence authorities.
Yonhap reported three blasts in the tunnels Thursday followed by explosions that destroyed a barracks and other structures on the mountainside.
- Powerful blast -
Tests staged at the site have demonstrated the country's rapid progress in its nuclear programme -- especially since Kim took power in 2011 and oversaw four atomic tests in only six years.
The country's first test was largely seen as a failure and produced an estimated yield of only about one kiloton, compared to as much as 250 kilotons in the sixth -- an explosion 16 times more powerful than the US atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
But Punggye-ri's proximity to China has become a source of concern for Beijing, as the tremor from the sixth test was felt across the border and prompted many residents to flee their homes in panic.
- Collapse claims -
The growing impact of the blasts raised safety concerns, with some Chinese scientists warning that the site could pose a major radioactive threat to the wider region.
A recent study by seismologists at the University of Science and Technology of China suggested rock had collapsed under the Mantap peak, making it unusable.
Kim himself has disputed those claims in conversations with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-In.
"If they come and see, they will understand that there are two bigger tunnels than the existing test facilities and that they are in a very good condition," Kim said, according to comments released by the South.
A statement by North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Institute on Thursday said prior to the blasts, reporters confirmed "two tunnels at the nuclear test ground were ready for use for carrying out very powerful underground nuclear tests at any time".
- Empty gesture? -
Sceptics have said the move to destroy the site is an empty concession by Kim as the site is already suffering from "tired mountain syndrome" and may be obsolete. Others say North Korea has learned all it needs from the nuclear tests conducted there.
"They already collected the necessary data through six nuclear tests and unless they discard that data, there are suspicions over how significant the dismantling of a nuclear test site that has already run its course is," said Go Myong-Hyun, an analyst at the Asan Institute of Policy Studies.
But Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies says there is "no basis" to conclude Punggye-ri is no longer usable and the closure is "not a case of passing off damaged goods".
- Radiation fears -
The North has long claimed that its nuclear tests posed no environmental threats, saying there was "no radioactive leak" after conducting tests.
But some South Korean and Japanese media reported that workers at the site or residents from the area suffered from radioactive exposure and symptoms including cancer and the births of deformed babies, citing the North's defectors and researchers.
Such concerns prompted Seoul's unification ministry to run medical checkups on 30 defectors who hailed from the region for potential radioactive exposure last year.
Four of them -- from the county of Kilju that includes Punggye-ri -- showed symptoms that could be attributed to radiation exposure, but researchers involved in the study said they could not conclude that the health problems had been caused by a nuclear test.
After the destruction on Thursday, North Korea said: "It has been confirmed that there were neither leakage of radioactive materials nor any adverse impact on the surrounding ecological environment."
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Pompeo: North Korea wants US economic help
Washington (AFP) May 23, 2018
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wants economic help from the United States and security guarantees in exchange for denuclearization, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday. Pompeo, who has met Kim in Pyongyang twice in recent weeks to prepare the groundwork for a summit with President Donald Trump, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the historic talks are "still scheduled for June 12" despite reports of differences between the two sides. "We're optimistic that we can achieve ... read more
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