January 2016 North Korean nuclear test

January 2016 North Korea nuclear test
January 2016 North Korea nuclear test
Information
Country	North Korea
Test site	41°18′29″N 129°02′56″E / 41.308°N 129.049°E, Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, Kilju County
Period	10:00, 6 January 2016 UTC+08:30 (01:30:01 UTC)
Number of tests	1
Test type	Underground
Device type	Hydrogen according to the DPRK, fission according to the South Korean National Intelligence Service
Max. yield	Not announced by DPRK; Estimated at least 7 kilotons of TNT (29 TJ) similar to the 2013 test due to the same magnitude scale as the previous test.; 10 kilotons of TNT (42 TJ) (Estimation from Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources) – which was revised from initial estimates of 14 kilotons of TNT (59 TJ); 7.1–15.5 kilotons of TNT (30–65 TJ) kt University of Science and Technology of China;
Test chronology

2km
1.2miles

South

West

East

North portal

6

5

4

3

2

1

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Location of North Korea's nuclear tests
1: 2006; 2: 2009; 3: 2013; 4: 2016-01; 5: 2016-09; 6: 2017;

V

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear detonation on 6 January 2016 at 10:00:01 UTC+08:30. At the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, approximately 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Kilju City in Kilju County, an underground nuclear test was carried out. The United States Geological Survey reported a 5.1 magnitude earthquake from the location; the China Earthquake Networks Center reported the magnitude as 4.9.

North Korean media announced that the country had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb in "self-defence against US". However, third-party experts as well as officials and agencies in South Korea questioned North Korea's claims and contend that the device was more likely to have been a fission bomb such as a boosted fission weapon. Such weapons use hydrogen fusion to produce smaller, lighter warheads suitable for arming a delivery device such as a missile, rather than to attain the destructive power of a true hydrogen bomb.