Quake Detected In North Korea Near Nuke Site; Iran Tests New Ballistic Missile

A little over an hour ago, China’s earthquake-monitoring bureau detected a magnitude 3.4 tremor in North Korea near the country’s nuclear test site. Initial reports called it “a suspected blast”. The United States Geological Survey put the tremor at a magnitude 3.5.

The quake was near Kilju, in the northeast, about 12 miles southeast of where the North conducted its sixth nuclear test earlier this month.

Japan’s Kyodo News also called this “an expected explosion,” but they appear to have been piggybacking off the initial report out of China.

Subsequently, South Korea “confirmed” this was a naturally occurring event. “The quake is presumed to have occurred naturally,” an official at South Korea’s weather agency said. “A sound wave, which is usually generated in the event of an artificial earthquake, was not detected.”

As Bloomberg reminds you “there have been concerns about the stability of the nuclear test site since the Sept. 3 detonation [as] website 38 North said satellite imagery taken after that test appeared to show landslides atop the site that were more numerous and widespread than after the previous five tests.”

Meanwhile, Iran successfully tested a new ballistic missile with a range of 1,200 miles just a day after showing it off at a military parade where Rouhani insisted that Iran would pursue its missile program without asking any country’s permission (which, when you think about it, is more reasonable than it sounds at first blush).

“You are seeing images of the successful test of the Khorramshahr ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 km, the latest missile of our country,” state television said, adding that “this is the third Iranian missile with a range of 2,000 km.” Here’s the footage:

So all in all, just another Saturday in a world that’s completely falling apart. And Trump is already awake and tweeting.