Article

2004-04-29 China-Japan-Koreas

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Posted by Evert V. in NL 2004-04-29 11:12:02 AM|| || Front Page|| [11131 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 http://nkzone.typepad.com/nkzone/images/040429-nk-01.jpg

Posted by Anonymous4021 2004-04-29 12:17:44 PM|| 2004-04-29 12:17:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 Your link doesn't work (you dropped the jpg). This one should.

Very interesting. What are all the shiny white things in the "after" image? Can anyone find the center of the explosion? There's what looks like a big scar in the lower left of the image, between the train tracks and the road beside them. Is that it? The scar is perpendicular to the train tracks, and you can see a blue vehicle next to it. There's also a complex of white buildings across the street. Looks vaguely schoolish. You think that was the elementary school that was supposedly there?

Posted by Angie Schultz 2004-04-29 12:20:41 PM|| [http://darkblogules.blogspot.com] 2004-04-29 12:20:41 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Full size after image here.

I would assume the white objects were temporary structures, probably tents. The explosion was supposedly centred on the railway station sidings, and this seems to be case (easier to see from the large image).

Posted by Lux 2004-04-29 12:42:44 PM|| 2004-04-29 12:42:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Thats allot of destruction. No way a fuel train would cause that much. We've had fuel trains blow up here in the States and they don't look anything like that. I'd love to know what the atmospheric reading were downwind after this. Anyone know of allot of iodine being used in the area?

Posted by Yosemite Sam 2004-04-29 12:48:04 PM|| 2004-04-29 12:48:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 YS, fuel train was just first report. Most recent admission was trainload of ammonium nitrate going to a mine to be used for blasting. In the US, it's mixed with fuel oil on site or as it's loaded into the hole for safety reasons. I wonder if the North Korean's mixed it at the factory before loading it on the train so it was ready to use at the mine. That would explain how a electric line falling on the car could ignite it.

Posted by Steve 2004-04-29 2:16:03 PM|| 2004-04-29 2:16:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 anyone heard from Kimmy yet? I can't stand the suspense. I'm going to put up a WOT on whether or not he is dead.

Posted by B 2004-04-29 2:52:14 PM|| 2004-04-29 2:52:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 To be honest, I do not see a whole lot of destruction. Given prevailing NK property values, costs of materials and labor rates, we are looking at less than US$2 million to rebuild. A far crime from the US$500 million the NKers are trying to get out of the free nations in aid. Piss on 'em.

Posted by Garrison 2004-04-29 4:06:55 PM|| 2004-04-29 4:06:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 Imagery analysis and bomb damage assessment was my military specialty. There is one he$$ of a lot of damage to the city from what I see. It looks like all or most of an area a half-mile square suffered moderate to severe damage. This will be long - someone feel free to edit to save bandwidth, if necessary.

In the lower photo, notice the row of warehouses along the road running from the top to the bottom. These are totally missing from the top photo. Also notice the large four-storey white building in the lower photo - it, too is gone. There are a minimum of five craters: two large ones and five small ones. The largest, based on the 55-foot long railcars on the adjacent rail spur, is approximately 80 feet long by 35-40 feet wide, and probably 12-15 feet deep. The one up from that is smaller, maybe 35 feet long and 10 feet wide. These look to be made by a very powerful blast, and probably did 90% of the damage. There is another small blast/burn mark up further on the rail line that would be consistant with the deisel fuel storage of the engine catching fire and exploding. Also the dark color of the blast area indicates a fuel-oil type blast and fire, rather than ammonium nitrate or high explosives. There are similar blast/burn marks on two other rail lines, indicating that railcars on those lines caught fire and burned.

There also appear to be a number of circular "secondary explosion" marks all through the area between the railroad yard and the main road running from top to bottom on the upper photo. This would give me the impression that one or both trains were carrying munitions that were scattered and that exploded. From the size of the blast, the probable type of munitions would be mortar rounds or light artillery (60mm-105mm). There are very few burn/blast marks typical of those left by exploding vehicles, although there are a few in the photo.

Some of the other damage includes most of the roofs and much of the upper walls of the single-storey buildings to the right of the blast have been destroyed; approximately 200 feet of the covered passenger loading area on the left side of the railyard has been blown away; much of the main road and all of the secondary roads in the area are blocked by debris. There is at least one track operating through the railyard (there is a train on the tracks, obviously making its way through the yard), but traffic is probably limited, and yard transfer speed has probably reduced to the minimum for safety reasons.

I'd love to have better "before" and "after" imagery, so I could do a better job...

Posted by Old Patriot 2004-04-29 10:14:24 PM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm] 2004-04-29 10:14:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Mike - you've done pretty good, thx!

Posted by Frank G 2004-04-29 10:21:56 PM|| 2004-04-29 10:21:56 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 I finally managed to get the LARGE (4meg) photo downloaded, after trying three or four times today. After playing with it in LView, I have a much better shot that much more clearly shows the extent of the damage. It's pretty awesome. If someone with a blog wants it to post, email me, and I'll send it to you. It's big - 108kb - but not as big as the monster I took it from!

Posted by Old Patriot 2004-04-29 10:30:52 PM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm] 2004-04-29 10:30:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Might be too late, but here's a large before version.

Posted by Lux 2004-04-30 2:54:19 AM|| 2004-04-30 2:54:19 AM|| Front Page Top

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