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China-Japan-Koreas
S.Korea Says There Was No Big Blast in N.Korea
2004-09-17
South Korea's latest assessment of a widely reported explosion in the Hermit Kingdom North Korea last week is that there was no blast at all at the suspected site, a vice minister said Friday.
"All a big mistake. Go back to what you were doing..."
Seismic signals and strange cloud formations picked up last week were not from an explosion, vice minister of unification, Rhee Bong-jo, told reporters.
"Yeah. Swamp gas. And... ummm... Venus rising..."
Initial reports had even suggested a nuclear test could have been responsible for a mushroom cloud spotted over the North. Foreign diplomats who visited Thursday what they were told was the site of a mysterious explosion in North Korea said it was a hydroelectric project under construction. South Korea said they had been in the wrong place.
"Yeah. It was... ummm... someplace else."
South Korea said the diplomats had been about 100 km away from the suspected location in remote Kimhyungjik county on the Chinese border. But the story became even more convoluted when Rhee said there had been no blast at all. "There is no information to support an explosion in the area where there were indications of an explosion," Rhee said. North Korea says the explosion was demolition work for a power plant.
"But they're wrong, 'cuz there wasn't an explosion, see?"
Rhee said the North's explanation was probably referring to work in Samsu county, where the diplomats went. "It is likely the peculiar cloud was natural cloud," Rhee said, explaining initial reports of a mushroom cloud.
"But it was just swamp gas..."
He said seismic activity had probably been around Mount Paektu, on the North Korean-Chinese border even further from Kimhyungjik county. A Western diplomat briefed by the returning observers said the group had been flown and taken by road to a large construction site in the northern county of Samsu Thursday. "There was lots of soil, debris and rocks being transported," the diplomat said.
"That's prob'ly what they thought came out of the mushroom cloud. But it was just swamp gas..."
Posted by:Destro

#15  Can't you just hear all the sighs going off in the south now!
Posted by: smn   2004-09-17 9:27:50 PM  

#14  The horrifying truth is that this was really a weaponized kimchi experiment.
Posted by: Phil Fraering   2004-09-17 7:26:14 PM  

#13  Whatever it is, it will derail the six-way luncheon talks.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2004-09-17 7:09:20 PM  

#12  Kind of a seismic burp...
Posted by: Fred   2004-09-17 6:55:32 PM  

#11  I guess it was just your odd mushroom cloud

I say is was a rutabaga cloud, or maybe kholrabi, or even a spinach cloud. Maybe it was a bok choi cloud, because after all it was in Korea.
Posted by: BigEd   2004-09-17 4:34:36 PM  

#10  Seismic signals and strange cloud formations picked up last week were not from an explosion, vice minister of unification, Rhee Bong-jo, (alias Kim al-Sahhaf Park) told reporters.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2004-09-17 4:29:10 PM  

#9  "Why, I'm not absolutely sure that I heard anything at all..."
-- Tom Hanks, "The Ladykillers"
Posted by: mojo   2004-09-17 1:02:19 PM  

#8  Last week,my wife and I seen a huge white cloud with a huge hole in it over Tropic,Utah.No evidence of an explosion. He He.
Posted by: crazyhorse   2004-09-17 10:49:04 AM  

#7  "There was lots of soil, debris and rocks being transported,"

I take it that fedex will soon be coming up with the ballistic package system: they'll shove your package into a big cannon and fire it at the target?

I can see the next time: "There was never a city called Seoul, any account of its existence is a heinous lie perpetrated by the evil Zionist entity and its puppet state in North Amerika"
Posted by: Brutus   2004-09-17 10:12:56 AM  

#6  Whats goign on with South Korea?

Appeasement?

Considering the evidence was shaky to begin with, this may have been an over exaggeration by a sensationalist press. (Gee where have I seen that before?)

The real deal woudl be seismic information. Given the huge amount of sensors we have in the region, this woudl have been leaked long ago from the US. ANd I notice no images of the "crater" havve been posted. Given that there are commecrical stas good enough to image the area for that, this surely should have been posted by now.

My inclination is that, in the absence of sesmic, photo and other evidence, that this thing really may have been nothing at all. Its that the location was at such a logical spot that we all jumped but on inconclusive evidence because we wanted to see it be true - and it "made sense" given location, inclination of Norks.
Posted by: OldSpook   2004-09-17 9:55:04 AM  

#5  Oceana is not at war with Eurasia.
Oceana has never been at war with Eurasia.
Now what was your question?
Posted by: N guard   2004-09-17 9:30:30 AM  

#4  But there's an article on CNN now saying NorK plans on a couple more explosions in their dam construction. What's goin' on SKorea?
Posted by: nada   2004-09-17 9:09:52 AM  

#3  I guess it was just your odd mushroom cloud. These things used to happen alot in the Pacific around the Bikini Atoll. Of course, we shouldn't believe our lying eyes either.
Posted by: Douglas De Bono   2004-09-17 9:08:49 AM  

#2  " Yeah, two miles in height isn't that big of a mushroom cloud! "
Posted by: Charles   2004-09-17 9:08:44 AM  

#1  Zionist chem trails.
/al bowler
Posted by: Shipman   2004-09-17 8:14:42 AM  

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