Earthquake administration of China detected a magnitude 3.4 earthquake in North Korea and the Chinese government said it was a “suspected explosion.”
China made the announcement raising fears the isolated state had conducted another nuclear bomb test weeks after its last one, reports Reuters.
An official at South Korea’s meteorological agency said they were analyzing the tremor, which they put at magnitude 3.0, but the initial view was that it was a natural quake.
“We use several methods to tell whether earthquakes are natural or manmade,” said the official, who asked for anonymity.
“A key method is to look at the seismic waves or seismic acoustic waves and the latter can be detected in the case of a manmade earthquake. In this case we saw none. So as of now we are categorizing this as a natural earthquake,” the official said.
The earthquake was detected in Kilju county in North Hamgyong Province, where North Korea’s known Punggyeri nuclear site is located, the official said.