U.S. says N. Korea blast unlikely to have been nuclear

Seoul - A huge explosion rocked North Korea three days ago but U.S. and South Korean officials said on Sunday it was unlikely to have been a nuclear weapons test despite a report the blast produced a mushroom cloud.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the blast on Thursday in Kimhyungjik county in Ryanggang province in the northeast near the border with China appeared much bigger than a train explosion that killed at least 170 people in April.

The New York Times reported in its Sunday editions the Bush administration had received recent intelligence reports that some experts believed could indicate North Korea was preparing to conduct its first nuclear weapons test explosion.

But in Washington, U.S. officials said there was no definitive explanation yet, although the blast did not appear to be nuclear. A test would alter the stakes in the North's standoff with the United States over Pyongyang's atomic ambitions.

"We've got no indication that anything of the sort has happened. We believe these reports to be completely unfounded," said a State Department official who asked not to be named.

"People are pretty sure it's not a mushroom cloud and not a test of any kind," the official said.

Yonhap said a mushroom cloud up to 4 km (2.5 miles) in diameter was seen after the blast in an area near missile bases.

South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young also played down an atomic link, telling reporters after a National Security Council meeting that Seoul's assessment so far was the explosion was unlikely to have been part of the communist North's nuclear arms ambitions.

"There are some foreign media reporting such possibilities, but we are judging at the moment the explosion is unrelated to such reports," Yonhap quoted him as saying.

Chung chairs the National Security Council, which advises President Roh Moo-hyun. Roh's spokesman, Kim Jong-min, told Reuters the president had been briefed. The South's weather service said no earth tremors had been detected.

Japan said it was checking the reports.

North Korea has said nothing so far about a blast, but often reports on events long after they happen.

There was no immediate reaction from North Korea's big neighbor and main ally, China. A senior Chinese Communist Party delegation is in Pyongyang, as is a British junior minister, Bill Rammell of the Foreign Office.

An official at a hospital in the Chinese city of Ji'an, on the Yalu River across from North Korea, said they had not heard of any explosion or received any injured from across the border.

Ji'an city and police officials could not be reached for comment. A railway station official at Ji'an said they had not heard of anything and said mountains on the North Korean side of the border could block any sight of a mushroom cloud. Aid agencies in Pyongyang said they had not heard of an explosion.

Thursday was the 56th anniversary of North Korea's founding. The reclusive communist state often stages extravaganzas and big events to mark important anniversaries.

South Korean intelligence officials said they were monitoring the news, but declined detailed comment on the reports, which were based on "informed sources" in Beijing and in Seoul. Yonhap did not give a description of the blast site.

The reports surfaced as South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the United States were seeking to persuade North Korea to return to the negotiating table to discuss its nuclear weapons ambitions. The North, which threatened at earlier talks to test an atomic bomb, has said it doubts more negotiations will help.

"There were rumors that the explosion was much bigger than the one at Ryongchon train station and the United States is showing a big interest as the blast was seen from satellites," Yonhap quoted an unnamed source in Beijing as saying.

The cause had yet to be determined but the source said Washington was not ruling out the possibility that the blast may be linked to a nuclear test.

China was the last country to set off an above-ground nuclear test, in 1980. It carried out its last nuclear test in 1996 and has since observed a self-imposed moratorium on testing.

Yonhap quoted one source as saying it could be a forest fire. Other possibilities include a failed missile engine test, a high-explosives test as a precursor to a nuclear blast or an industrial accident.

Train wagons exploded at the Ryongchon railway station on April 22, killing 170 and injuring an estimated 1,300. The blast was believed to have been caused by a train loaded with oil and chemicals hitting a power line.

On Saturday, the North criticized Seoul about nuclear experiments South Korean scientists conducted in the past and which came to light in the past week. But a senior South Korean Foreign Ministry official rejected the criticism on Sunday, saying the experiments were scientific, not military. -- Reuters

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