Tag Archives: Earthquake

‘Hearts are in pieces’ five years after tsunami hits Japan

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan (Reuters) – Japan on Friday mourned the thousands who lost their lives in a massive earthquake and tsunami five years ago that turned towns to matchwood and triggered the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

The nine-magnitude quake struck offshore on a chilly Friday, sparking huge black waves along a vast swathe of coastline and killing nearly 20,000 people.

The tsunami crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, where meltdowns in three reactors spewed radiation over a wide area of the countryside, contaminating water, food and air.

Naoto Kan, the prime minister at the time, has said he feared he would have to evacuate the Japanese capital Tokyo and that Japan’s very existence could have been in peril.

More than 160,000 people were evacuated from nearby towns and some 10 percent still live in temporary housing across Fukushima prefecture. Most have settled outside their hometowns and have begun new lives.

Some areas remain no-go zones due to high radiation. Demonstrators in front of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) bore signs saying, “Give me back my hometown!”

At cemeteries along the devastated coastline, in front of buildings hollowed out by the wave, and on beaches, families gathered to offer flowers and incense, bowing their heads and wiping away tears.

Flags at central government buildings were at half-mast, some draped in black.

In coastal Rikuzentakata, which was flattened by a wave as much as 56 feet high and lost seven percent of its population along with its entire downtown, pain remains strong.

“The reality is that we still feel the scars here, and there are still many struggling to restart their lives,” said 65-year-old Yashichi Yanashita, a retired city hall official. The four-story city hall was inundated by the wave.

A MOMENT OF SILENCE

At 2:46 p.m., the moment the quake hit, bells rang out in downtown Tokyo and people around the nation bowed their heads in a moment of silence. All the trains on Tokyo’s vast underground paused for a minute.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Emperor Akihito bowed in front of a stage laden with white and yellow flowers in a Tokyo ceremony attended by 1,200 people, including survivors from the stricken area.

“Father, that day, I called your mobile phone so many times, but you didn’t answer … ” said Masakiyo Kimura, who lost his parents to the wave in the city of Onagawa.

“Our house was completely torn from its foundation. Nothing remained except for the pair of matching teacups father and mother used, lying on top of each other.”

Billions of dollars in government spending have helped stricken communities rise from the ruins, including elevating the earth to protect them from future waves and cleaning radiation-contaminated land, but much remains to be done for thousands still languishing in barracks-like temporary housing.

“I get the feeling that the number of people who don’t know what to do, who aren’t even trying, is increasing,” said Kazuo Sato, a former fisherman from Rikuzentakata. “Their hearts are in pieces.”

RECONSTRUCTION CONTINUES

Government spending on reconstruction is set to dip from the start of the new fiscal year in April. But Abe pledged continued support.

“Many people are still leading uncomfortable lives in the affected areas. There are many who cannot return to their beloved homes because of the accident at the nuclear power plant,” he said at the ceremony.

“We commit ourselves to … providing care for their minds and bodies, forming new local communities and supporting industrial development of the affected areas.”

Full recovery will take still longer.

“Infrastructure is recovering, hearts are not. I thought time would take care of things,” said Eiki Kumagai, a Rikuzentakata volunteer fireman who lost 51 colleagues, many killed as they guided others to safety.

“I keep seeing the faces of those who died… There’s so much regret, I can’t express it.”

(Reporting by Elaine Lies, Editing by Linda Sieg, Nick Macfie and)

Pain lingers five years later as tsunami-hit Japan town rises from ruins

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan (Reuters) – Time has done little to help Japanese volunteer fireman Eiki Kumagai with memories of March 11, 2011, when he clung to some steps as a huge black tsunami surged through his town, washing away people he knew as they cried for help.

“We were recovering bodies,” the 48-year-old recalls. “This is a small town, we knew them all. Women, children, old people. There were so many, we had two layers.”

Five years after Rikuzentakata lost 7 percent of its population and its entire downtown to the 49-foot wave touched off by a magnitude 9 earthquake, a huge construction project has raised its center from future waves.

But while the physical landscape has been changed for the better, emotionally many people in the town of 20,000 remain frozen in grief and psychologists say it may take several generations to ease the trauma fully.

“The year of the tsunami, I was angry at the wave,” said Kazuo Sato, a former oyster fisherman who can still barely look at the sea. He lost 100 friends and relatives.

“What’s left is regret, and that’s getting worse. We could have saved so many more people.”

The town center has been transformed with 5 million cubic tonnes of earth scraped from a nearby mountain and shaped by a fleet of backhoes into mounds up to 46 feet high.

Cranes loom over a towering seawall and new roads snake over the hills.

Home building will finally start this summer, offering hope for 1,400 households still in barracks-like temporary housing.

Officials, including Mayor Futoshi Toba, deplore regulations that delayed construction and worry that with the passing of time, attention will be diverted from a recovery only 60 percent complete. National funds for rebuilding will dip with the new fiscal year from April.

Many also worry that construction for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo will hamper the rebuilding of the town.

“If construction overlaps, there won’t be enough workers and wages will rise, making houses more expensive,” said Toba, who watched helplessly from the city hall roof as the town was destroyed. His wife, with whom he had spoken moments before the quake, was killed.

“Why did the government want the Olympics in 2020? I think they could easily have hosted them four years later.”

SPRING SNOW

Some residents say the new embankments are uncomfortable reminders of how much their lives have changed.

“I think probably a lot of people have complicated feelings,” said city official Tsuyoshi Yamada. “But their feelings of wanting to live in a safe place are stronger.”

Long-suppressed feelings of anguish are emerging as life slips back into routines, but a stigma against mental illness in Japan makes many people reluctant to seek help.

“They keep their feelings shut tight in their chests out of a sense that others have suffered even more,” said psychologist Kiyoka Yukimoto. “For this city to really recover, they need mental health services.”

Volunteer firemen, who took to the streets telling people to flee as the water loomed, have particularly painful memories. One man began weeping as he recalled 51 colleagues who lost their lives.

“A couple of guys went down to check on an elderly man, even though I said we had no more time. None of them came back,” Kumagai said.

Toba, whose duties kept him from searching for his wife or seeing his children after the quake, said feelings were complex.

“It always snows around 3/11, even though it should be spring. But the weather reminds us of that day and everybody remembers those who died,” he said.

“At the same time, it is five years, so we shouldn’t just talk about gloomy things. We need to look forward and build a place where children can talk about their dreams.”

(Reporting by Elaine Lies; Editing by Linda Sieg, Robert Birsel)

Huge quake strikes off Indonesia but tsunami warnings canceled

By Kanupriya Kapoor and Eveline Danubrata

JAKARTA (Reuters) – A massive quake struck on Wednesday off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, a region devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean quake and tsunami, but initial fears of another region-wide disaster faded as tsunami warnings were canceled.

Indonesian and Australian authorities called off their tsunami alerts within two hours of the 7.8 magnitude tremor, though it was still unclear if the quake had destroyed any buildings or killed people in Sumatra.

A National Search and Rescue Agency official gave an initial report of some deaths, but later withdrew those comments.

“Up until now, there is no information about deaths,” said Heronimus Guru, the agency’s deputy head of operations.

Any rescue operation will be hampered by the dark, which falls early in the tropical archipelago.

There were no immediate reports of damage, but the shallower a quake, the more dangerous it is. The U.S. Geological Survey originally put the magnitude at 8.2, revising it down to 7.8.

The epicenter was 808 km (502 miles) southwest of the coastal city of Padang. It was 24 km (15 miles) deep, it said, after first putting its depth at 10 km.

“So far there have been no reports (of damage),” Andi Eka Sakya, head of the National Meteorological Agency, told TVOne. “In Bengkulu (in southwest Sumatra) they didn’t feel it at all.”

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said a tsunami was unlikely.

“Local governments of the city of Padang and some other areas in west Sumatra have said there was no tsunami and the warning can now be revoked,” spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

President Joko Widodo was staying overnight at a hotel in Medan in North Sumatra and was safe, palace officials said. A Medan resident said he did not feel the quake.

Erwin, a resident of Mentawai, a chain of islands off Sumatra, told Metro TV: “I am at the beach currently looking to see any tsunami sign with my flashlight. There’s nothing. A few minutes have passed but nothing, but many people have already evacuated to higher places.”

On Pagai, an island off the west coast of Sumatra, resident Jois Zaluchu told Reuters by phone that there were no reports of damage or casualties there.

But Kompas TV said patients at hospitals in Padang were being evacuated. A TVOne reporter said Padang residents were panicking and there were heavy traffic jams.

Indonesia, especially Aceh, was badly hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.

A 9.15-magnitude quake opened a fault line deep beneath the ocean on Dec. 26, 2004, triggering a wave as high as 17.4 meters (57 feet) that crashed ashore in more than a dozen countries to wipe some communities off the map in seconds.

The disaster killed 126,741 people in Aceh alone.

Indonesia straddles the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a highly seismically active zone, where different plates on the earth’s crust meet and create a large number of earthquakes and volcanoes.

(Additional reporting by Randy Fabi, Agustinus Beo Da Costa, Gayatri Suroyo, Cindy Silviana and Heru Aspirhanto; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Mark Bendeich)

Magnitude 5.1 earthquake hits Oklahoma, state’s third-strongest on record

Oklahoma was hit by one of the strongest earthquakes in the state’s history over the weekend.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck just after 11 a.m. on Saturday, and it was centered about 21 miles northwest of Fairview. According to the Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS), it was the third-strongest quake ever recorded in the state.

Residents reported feeling strong-to-very-strong shaking near the quake’s center, according to user-submitted data on the USGS website. The agency says such shaking is capable of causing light or moderate damage, but there weren’t any such reports from Saturday’s earthquake.

Cities hundreds of miles away from Fairview experienced lighter shaking.

They included Oklahoma City (100 miles southeast), Fayetteville, Arkansas, (256 miles east), Dallas-Fort Worth (275 miles south) and Kansas City (300 miles northeast), the USGS said.

Five smaller earthquakes followed within 65 minutes of the initial quake, according to the USGS. Those other quakes ranged in magnitude from 2.5 to 3.9.

Oklahoma has seen a significant rise in seismic activity since 2009, and officials have linked the rise to wastewater from oil and gas production. Regulators have taken steps to limit its disposal.

However, the USGS says more than 300 earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or greater have occurred in Oklahoma in the first 46 days of 2016. That includes eight earthquakes above magnitude 4.0.

Oklahoma only saw 21 magnitude-4.0-or-greater quakes in a 64-month stretch from January 2009 to May 2014, the USGS said in a news release at the time. That includes a magnitude 5.6 earthquake that occurred in November 2011 near Prague, the strongest in the state’s history.

Oklahoma’s second-strongest earthquake was a magnitude 5.5 quake that occurred in April 1952 near El Reno, according to the OGS. The state hasn’t witnessed any other magnitude 5.0 quakes.

However, the USGS and OGS have both warned the recent rise in Oklahoma’s earthquake activity increases the risk that the state could be hit by an even bigger quake in the future.

Last month, Fairview was hit by 20 earthquakes in a span of about nine hours, including two just 30 seconds apart. Those nearly back-to-back earthquakes were initially reported to be

Taiwan earthquake death toll rises, building developer in custody

TAINAN, Taiwan (Reuters) – A local court in the southern Taiwan city of Tainan ruled on Tuesday to take into custody the developer of a building which collapsed during an earthquake at the weekend that killed at least 39 people.

Lin Ming-hui, the Wei-guan Golden Dragon Building’s developer, and two other men from his management team are being held without bail on suspicion of negligent homicide while the authorities finish their investigation, the Tainan District Court said in a statement.

The investigation is being led by the Tainan District Prosecutors Office.

The quake struck at about 4 a.m. on Saturday at the beginning of the Lunar New Year holiday, with almost all of the dead found in Tainan’s toppled Wei-guan Golden Dragon Building. Two people died elsewhere in the city.

Rescue work has focused on the wreckage of the 17-story building, where more than 100 people are listed as missing and are suspected to be buried deep under the rubble.

No survivors have been brought out since Monday evening.

Questions have been raised about the building’s construction quality, especially materials used to build it.

Lawyers for the three detained men were not immediately available to comment.

Hsiao Po-jen, director of the legal affairs department of the Tainan city government, told Reuters that Lin had been arrested on Monday evening.

Reuters witnesses at the scene of the collapse have seen large rectangular, commercial cans of cooking-oil packed inside wall cavities exposed by the damage, apparently having been used as building material.

Taiwan media has also reported the presence of polystyrene in supporting beams, mixed in with concrete.

The Wei-guan, completed in 1994, was the only major high-rise building in the city of two million people to have completely collapsed.

Its lower stories, filled with arcades of shops, pancaked on top of each other before the entire U-shaped complex toppled in on itself.

Deputy Tainan Mayor Tseng Shu-cheng told family members that 103 people were still missing in the rubble.

(Reporting by J.R. Wu, and Faith Hung in TAIPEI; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Nick Macfie and Mike Collett-White)

More rescued two days after Taiwan quake, death toll could exceed 100

TAINAN, Taiwan (Reuters) – Rescuers pulled out alive an eight-year-old girl and her aunt from the rubble of a Taiwan apartment block on Monday, more than 60 hours after it was toppled by a quake, as the mayor of the southern city of Tainan warned the death toll could exceed 100.

The official death toll from the quake rose to 38, with more than 100 people missing.

The girl, named as Lin Su-Chin, was conscious and had been taken to hospital, Taiwan television stations said. Her aunt, Chen Mei-jih, was rescued shortly after.

The quake struck at about 4 a.m. on Saturday at the beginning of the Lunar New Year holiday, with almost all the dead found in Tainan’s toppled Wei-guan Golden Dragon Building.

Rescue efforts are focused on the wreckage of the 17-story building, where more than 100 people are listed as missing and are suspected to be buried deep under the rubble.

Earlier, Wang Ting-yu, a legislator who represents the area, told reporters that a woman, identified as Tsao Wei-ling, was found alive, lying under her dead husband. Their two-year-old son, who was also killed, was found nearby.

Another survivor, a man named Li Tsung-tian, was pulled out later, with Taiwan television stations showing live images of the rescues. Several hours later, Li’s girlfriend was found dead in the rubble.

Tsao and Li were both being treated in hospital.

Tainan Mayor William Lai said during a visit to a funeral home that rescue efforts had entered what he called the “third stage”.

“There are more fatalities than those pulled out (alive), and the number of fatalities will probably exceed 100,” Lai told reporters.

Rescuers continued to scramble over the twisted wreckage of the building as numbed family members stood around, waiting for news of missing relatives.

Taiwan’s government said in a statement 36 of the 38 dead were from the Wei-guan building, which was built in 1994.

President-elect Tsai Ing-wen, who won election last month, said there needed to be a “general sorting out” of old buildings to make sure they were able to cope with disasters like earthquakes.

“There needs to be a continued strengthening of their ability to deal with disasters,” she said.

Outgoing President Ma Ying-jeou, speaking to reporters at a Tainan hospital, said the government needed to be a better job in ensuring building quality.

“In the near future, regarding building management, we will have some further improvements. We will definitely do this work well,” Ma said.

Reuters witnesses at the scene of the collapse saw large rectangular, commercial cans of cooking-oil packed inside wall cavities exposed by the damage, apparently having been used as building material.

Chinese President Xi Jinping also conveyed condolences to the victims, state news agency Xinhua reported late on Sunday, and repeated Beijing’s offer to provide help.

China views self-ruled Taiwan as a wayward province, to be bought under its control by force if necessary.

(Additional reporting by Faith Hung in Taipei and Megha Rajagopalan in Beijing; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Paul Tait and Nick Macfie)

Powerful earthquake causes damage in southern Taiwan

TAIPEI (Reuters) – A powerful earthquake struck southern Taiwan on Saturday near the city of Tainan, toppling at least one apartment building and collapsing other structures although there were no immediate reports of deaths or serious injuries.

At least five aftershocks of 3.8-magnitude or more shook Tainan about half an hour after the initial quake, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau.

Taiwan’s Formosa TV showed images of police, firefighters and some troops in camouflage uniforms at the site of a collapsed residential building and said its reporters could hear the cries of some residents trapped inside.

The firefighters were hosing down part of the building to prevent a fire, while others used ladders and a crane to enter the upper floors.

The building appeared to have collapsed onto the first story where a child’s clothes were visible fluttering on a laundry line.

Taiwan lies in the seismically active “Pacific Ring of Fire” zone and it was struck by a magnitude 7.7 quake that killed more than 2,400 people in September 1999.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the latest quake, a magnitude 6.4, was centered 27 miles southeast of Tainan, a city of nearly 2 million people.

The quake was very shallow, at depth of 6.2 miles, which would have amplified its effects, the USGS said.

Taiwan’s China Post newspaper said on its website that more than one building collapsed in the quake.

“Collapsed buildings reported in Tainan, with rescue workers arriving on scene. The city government there has set up a level one emergency response center. Onlookers are urged not to block access to emergency crews moving into the area,” the newspaper said.

Tainan city’s fire department confirmed earlier that at least one building had partially collapsed and Liu Shih-chung, an official with the Tainan City Government, told Reuters the city had set up an emergency response center. Official information about the extent of damages from the quake was not immediately available.

According to the USGS, the last time Taiwan was struck by a quake of the same magnitude as Saturday’s was in April 2015, but that temblor was much deeper.

(Reporting by JR Wu and Tomasch Janowski; Additional reporting by Eric Walsh and Eric Beech; Editing by Sandra Maler and Tom Brown)

Tremors in U.S. Northeast caused by sonic boom, not quake: USGS

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Residents from New Jersey to Connecticut reported feeling earthquake-like shaking on Thursday afternoon, but U.S. seismologists said the vibrations were likely the result of a series of sonic booms.

The U.S. Geological Survey, which monitors earthquake activity, said no quake had struck. The agency reported at least nine sonic booms had been recorded over 90 minutes starting at 1:24 p.m. near Hammonton, New Jersey, about 35 miles southeast of Philadelphia.

On Twitter, users said they felt several tremors, particularly in southern New Jersey.

It was not immediately clear what had caused the sonic booms, which are generated by airplanes traveling in the air faster than the speed of sound.

Some news reports suggested that military aircraft from McGuire Air Force Base, approximately 35 miles north of Hammonton, were the likely source.

But the McGuire base said on Twitter that its training ranges were clear on Thursday and that none of its aircraft are capable of creating sonic booms. In a subsequent post, the base said it was working with local authorities to determine a cause.

Seismologists at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York also confirmed that no earthquake had occurred in the region and that they had measured vibrations and low-frequency sound waves consistent with about eight sonic booms from approximately 1:20 p.m. to 2:40 p.m.

Won-Young Kim, a research professor at the observatory, said residents on the ground likely would not have heard the booms but would have experienced 15 to 20 seconds of shaking during each one.

The tremors produced numerous emergency calls to local police departments, some of which took to Twitter to ask residents not to flood their emergency lines with any more reports.

No damage was immediately reported.

Some Twitter users offered a lighthearted response. One person using the handle @VixenRogue quipped: “Aliens are invading New Jersey. What’s the best way to let them know the other 49 states are just fine with this?”

The reports came two days after residents in Charleston, South Carolina, said they felt tremors. The shaking was likely caused by sonic booms from F-18 fighter jets on a training run from a nearby military base, according to media reports.

Sonic booms are often mistaken for seismic activity, according to the USGS website.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Additional reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Andrew Hay and Sandra Maler)

California Rattled By Heavy Rains, Snow, Earthquake

Large portions of California were bracing for more heavy rain and snow Wednesday as El Niño pushed powerful storms toward the state, threatening to cause flash flooding and other damage.

The National Weather Service issued numerous flash flood watches along the California coastline and also issued winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories for areas in higher elevations. The service’s office in San Diego also warned of a chance for mudslides, particularly in areas where recent wildfires burned.

National Weather Service forecasts called for 2 to 4 inches of rain to fall across Southern California on Wednesday, accompanied by peak wind gusts of up to 60 mph that could be strong enough to topple trees and power lines. The rain comes a day after 1.42 inches fell at Los Angeles International Airport, smashing a daily rainfall record that stood for more than 36 years. Other parts of California received more than 3 inches of rain, National Weather Service data indicated.

The National Weather Service was calling for 5 to 10 inches of snow in higher elevations on Wednesday, but said mountain peaks could see 18 inches. Near-blizzard conditions were expected in some places. More storms were expected to drop additional precipitation tonight and Thursday.

Meanwhile, the United States Geological Survey reported a magnitude 4.5 earthquake occurred just outside of Banning, California, at 6:42 a.m. local time. The California Highway Patrol’s website indicated it received reports of small rocks and mud across state Route 243 a few minutes after the earthquake, though it wasn’t clear if the earthquake triggered the landslide.

Banning is located about 80 miles east of Los Angeles.

The National Weather Service also issued a flash flood warning for parts of Ventura County, just northwest of Los Angeles, cautioning that heavy rain could cause mud and debris to slide across busy Highway 101.

The storms were being blamed on El Niño, a weather pattern known for producing atypical and extreme weather throughout the world. It occurs when part of the Pacific Ocean is warmer than usual, which sets off a ripple effect that has a wide-reaching result. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said that the United States is expected to see the effects of this El Niño over the next three months as one of the strongest instances of the phenomenon on record may sway temperatures and precipitation totals across significant portions of the nation.

Los Angeles opened up several shelters to help the city’s homeless population weather the storms.

U.S., experts cast doubt on North Korea’s H-bomb claim

By Ju-min Park and Mark Hosenball

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – North Korea said it successfully tested a powerful nuclear bomb on Wednesday, drawing criticism from world powers even though experts and the U.S. government doubt that the isolated nation’s atomic weapons capability is as advanced as Pyongyang claims.

It was the fourth time that North Korea has exploded a nuclear device. It unnerved neighbors South Korea and Japan and prompted an emergency meeting on Wednesday of the U.N. Security Council in New York.

While a nuclear test had long been expected, North Korea’s assertion that it exploded a hydrogen device, much more powerful than an atomic bomb, came as a surprise. The White House said North Korea might not in fact have tested a hydrogen bomb.

The explosion caused an earthquake that was measured by the United States Geological Survey.

Pyongyang also said it was capable of miniaturizing, allowing a nuclear device to be adapted as a weapon and placed on a missile, potentially posing a new threat to the United States and its allies in Asia.

“Let the world look up to the strong, self-reliant nuclear-armed state,” leader Kim Jong Un wrote in what North Korean state TV displayed as a handwritten note.

While the Kim government boasts of its military might to project strength globally, it also plays up the need to defend itself from external threats as a way to maintain control domestically.

The test drew world criticism, including from China and Russia. China, the major trade partner of North Korea, said it will lodge a protest with Pyongyang.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said any nuclear test would be a “flagrant violation” of U.N. Security Council resolutions. “The initial analysis is not consistent with the claim the regime has made of a successful hydrogen bomb test,” he told reporters.

Conventional atomic bombs split atoms from heavier elements such as uranium or plutonium. They occur in one stage. The process is called fission. Hydrogen bombs have a second stage after fission. This fusion stage releases much more energy.

North Korea has been under U.N. Security Council sanctions since it first tested an atomic device in 2006 and could face additional measures.

The Security Council said it would begin working immediately on significant new measures in response to North Korea, a threat diplomats said could mean an expansion of U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang.

It likely will take several days to determine more precisely what kind of nuclear device Pyongyang set off as a variety of sensors, including “sniffer planes,” collect evidence.

South Korean intelligence officials and several analysts also questioned whether Wednesday’s explosion was a test of a full-fledged hydrogen device, pointing to its having been roughly as powerful as North Korea’s last atomic test in 2013.

Stocks across the world fell for a fifth consecutive day as the North Korea tension added to a growing list of geopolitical worries and China fueled fears about its economy by allowing the yuan to weaken further.

No countries were given advance warning of a nuclear test, South Korea’s intelligence service said, according to lawmakers briefed by intelligence officials.

In previous such tests, Pyongyang had notified China, Russia and the United States beforehand, they said.

U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

North Korea became a topic on the U.S. presidential campaign with the first state nominating contests weeks away and the election in November.

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton condemned the test as a “provocative and dangerous act” that the United States should meet with sanctions and strengthened missile defenses.

“North Korea must have no doubt that we will take whatever steps are necessary to defend ourselves and our treaty allies, South Korea and Japan,” she said in a statement.

Republican candidate Donald Trump said the onus was on China to solve what he called the North Korean “problem”, and if it did not, the United States “should make trade very difficult for China.”

North Korea has long coveted diplomatic recognition from Washington, but sees its nuclear deterrent as crucial to ensuring the survival of its third-generation dictatorship.

The North’s state news agency said Pyongyang would act as a responsible nuclear state and vowed not to use its nuclear weapons unless its sovereignty was infringed.

Michael Madden, an expert on North Korea’s secretive leadership, said, “With Iran being off the table, the North Koreans have placed themselves at the top of the foreign policy agenda as far as nation-states who present a threat to the U.S.”

DOUBTS RAISED

The device had a yield of about 6 kilo tonnes, according to the office of a South Korean lawmaker on the parliamentary intelligence committee – roughly the same size as the North’s last test, which was equivalent to 6-7 kilo tonnes of TNT.

“Given the scale, it is hard to believe this is a real hydrogen bomb,” said Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defence and Security Forum.

Joe Cirincione, a nuclear expert who is president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security organization, said North Korea may have mixed a hydrogen isotope in a normal atomic fission bomb.

“Because it is, in fact, hydrogen, they could claim it is a hydrogen bomb,” he said. “But it is not a true fusion bomb capable of the massive multi-megaton yields these bombs produce”.

The USGS reported a 5.1 magnitude quake that South Korea said was 49 km (30 miles) from the Punggye-ri site where the North has conducted nuclear tests in the past.

The North’s previous claims of miniaturization have not been independently verified. Many experts also doubt whether the North possesses missile technology capable of reliably delivering a warhead to the continental United States.

(Additional reporting by Meeyoung Cho, Ju-min Park, James Pearson, Se; Young Lee, Christine Kim, Jee Heun Kahng, Jack Kim in Seoul,; Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations, Ayesha Rascoe and in; Washington, Megha Rajagopalan in Beijing and Takashi Umekawa in; Tokyo; Writing by Tony Munroe and Alistair Bell; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Mike Collett-White and Howard Goller)