Unfazed by global pressure, a defiant North Korea today conducted a second “more powerful” nuclear test and test-fired three missiles, triggering an emergency UN Security Council meeting and calls for a global “action” against a “reckless” Pyongyang.
The state-run Korean Central News Agency said the country “successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defence in every way”.
Reacting sharply to the test, US President Barack Obama said Pyongyang's attempts at developing nuclear weapons were a “threat to international peace and security. “North Korea's attempts to develop nuclear weapons, as well as its ballistic missile programme, constitute a threat to international peace and security,” he said in a statement. “The danger posed by North Korea's threatening activities warrants action by the international community,” he said, as the reclusive communist nation's neighbours, South Korea and Japan condemned Pyongyang's action.
North's neighbour and close ally China said it was “resolutely opposed” to the test.
The UN Security Council, which sanctioned the North for its previous test, planned to meet later today in New York. Russian experts said the North Korean blast was up to 20 times more powerful than the its first nuclear test on October 9, 2006. Some South Korean experts said the power of the second blast is comparable to the bombs which hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.