Ryanggang Explosion - Cause

Cause

There has been a great deal of speculation on the nature of the incident. Hypotheses can be divided on several axes.

Things that could cause the physical phenomena observed:

• A large chemical explosive blast.
• A forest fire. The United States National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, said "maybe it was ... some kind of forest fire". The Yonhap news agency also quoted a source suggesting a forest fire.
• A natural cumulonimbus cloud formation.

If there were an explosion, the main possible causes:

• Explosive Remnants of War. Unexploded ordnance from the Korean War become increasingly unstable as they deteriorate. The United States dropped 635,000 tons of bombs in Korea between 1950 and 1953.
• North Korea's official explanation of demolition for a hydroelectric project.
• A nuclear weapon test or demonstration. There had been reported recent intelligence that North Korea might have been planning its first nuclear bomb test, and the significant date lends credence to this hypothesis. However, it would be strange for North Korea to then deny it, and international officials have said that it does not appear to have been a nuclear explosion. (Later updates in intelligence suggested that the test planning may have not been what it appeared to be.)
• A nuclear accident. Likewise, it has been denied that the explosion was nuclear.
• A large chemical explosive blast, to calibrate for a later nuclear test.
• Explosion of a munitions dump or of explosives in a munitions factory.

Finally, another way to divide up explosion hypotheses is by how intentional it was:

• Intended by North Korea.
• Accidental. North Korea's failing economy has made its industry accident-prone, as seen in the Ryongchon disaster earlier in 2004.
• Covert operation by a foreign state.
• Military/terrorist action connected with an internal power struggle.

With this dearth of solid information, the reactions from North Korea and other states form part of the reasoning of most interesting hypotheses. There is little solid information to go on: most statements are hedged, no one has been caught unequivocally lying, and the stakes are potentially high enough for all interested states to hide the truth from the public. The only really certain conclusion that can be drawn is that those states in the know are united in not wishing to make a public diplomatic incident out of whatever has happened.

North Korea's claim to possess nuclear weapons on 10 February 2005 gives the nuclear testing or accident hypotheses some credibility. However, no neighboring nations have claimed any detection of radioactive isotopes which would be characteristic of either. On 9 October 2006, North Korea claimed to have tested its first nuclear weapon (see 2006 North Korean nuclear test for more details).