3rd LD: DPRK announces success of nuclear warhead explosion test

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Friday that it has successfully carried out a nuclear warhead explosion.

That marked Pyongyang's fifth nuclear test in defiance of UN resolutions that ban the country from conducting nuclear tests or carrying out ballistic missile launches.

Friday's test examined and confirmed the structure and specific features of the movement of a newly developed nuclear warhead capable of being loaded on the "strategic ballistic rockets of the Hwasong artillery units" of the Korean People's Army, said a statement issued by the DPRK Nuclear Weapons Institute.

Factors measured in the test include "explosion might, nuclear material use coefficient," the statement said. The test had no radioactivity leakage or adverse impact on the surrounding environment, it added.

The nuclear test coincided with the 68th anniversary of the founding of the country.

The DPRK confirmed the nuclear test after various seismic-monitoring agencies reported an earthquake in the country.

Earlier in the day, the China Earthquake Network Center said a 5.0-magnitude earthquake jolted the DPRK at 0030 GMT at a depth of 0.0 km.

Meanwhile, the European Mediterranean Seismological Center said a 5.0-magnitude earthquake was detected in the DPRK and later revised the magnitude to 5.3. The U.S. Geological Survey saw the tremor as a 5.3-magnitude quake.

Pyongyang announced a successful test of its first hydrogen bomb, or its fourth nuclear test, on Jan. 6. The DPRK had also conducted underground nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013. Endi