October 11, 2006
Here's some information that your readers/ listeners might find interesting.
I must preface this email by stating that I am not in the field of Nuclear Physics, so my conclusions may be wrong. But it's worth looking into.
Just a couple of thoughts about the North Korean situation. I did a little research into the equivalent of nuclear bomb blast power and earthquake magnitude and came to an interesting conclusion.
If you go to the link provided below you will see a chart that shows earthquake magnitudes on the Richter scale and the TNT equivalent. Looking at the chart we can deduce that the first blast that occurred in North Korea, which caused a 4.2 magnitude tremor on the Richter scale, was equivalent to 1 kiloton of TNT. This is not much when you make a comparison to the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were 12.5 kilotons and 22 kilotons, respectively. In fact, North Korea says that this first blast was relatively small. Although there are claims by the Russians that the first blast was much stronger.
Now according to the media there was a second smaller blast which many doubt was nuclear at all.
But, then on Tuesday evening here in the U.S., for a short time it was reported that there was a third blast that was suspected according to information provided by the Japanese government, which claimed that they had felt a tremor or earthquake that was a result of this blast. Not too long after this report came out, the story was quickly changed. The main stream media then reported that it was actually a "natural earthquake" that measured a magnitude of 5.8 - 6.0. This tremor was supposedly not caused by a third blast as was originally thought.
Whether you believe the updated story or not, what is quite interesting to note is that if it was indeed a third blast produced by the North Koreans, looking at the chart again, we can conclude that this new blast was equivalent to a 1 megaton nuclear blast. This is 80 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and about 45 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Pretty frightening stuff!
For those who believe the MSM report that it was a "natural earthquake" you have nothing to worry about. Please go back to sleep.
Here's the link with the chart... http://www.themeter.net/sism_e.htm
BD