Kim Jong-un was pictured inspecting a peanut-shaped weapon which Pyongyang claimed was a hydrogen bomb, just hours before the rogue state launched its most powerful nuclear bomb yet.
The launch triggered an earthquake measuring 6.3 on the richter scale, 10 times more powerful than the tremors felt after North Korea’s last nuclear test last September.
North Korea’s state media claimed that the test had been a “perfect success”, and that the weapon was designed to be mounted on to an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of targeting the US.
World leaders have reacted with uniform outrage.
South Korea has announced that it will commission a controversial anti-missile defence system to intercept North Korean warheads, amid claims from Seoul that Pyongyang will launch further ICBM tests.
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US defence secretary James Mattis has warned that an attack from North Korea would be met with a “massive military response”.
He added that while the US is not seeking “total annihilation of a country”, it remains one of “many options”.
What is a hydrogen bomb?
A hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, is a term which commonly described a two-stage thermonuclear weapon.
A traditional nuclear bomb, or an atomic bomb, uses nuclear fission to split uranium or plutonium atoms, creating a massive blast.
A H-bomb adds a secondary stage, using nuclear fusion to amplify the explosion.
The US tested the first-known hydrogen bomb, codenamed Ivy Mike, in 1952 on Elugelab island, which was destroyed in the explosion.
The blast was more than 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
Since then the world’s nuclear powers, including the UK, China, France and Russia, have all created their own hydrogen bombs.
Does North Korea have a hydrogen bomb?
North Korea claimed that it had “successfully carried out a test of H-bomb”, however experts have said that this may not be the case.
The peanut-shaped weapon that Kim was pictured observing in images released by Pyongyang looks, superficially, to be a two-stage device.
However, North Korea analysts 38North said: “Caution should be taken as this is the conclusion that North Korea wants the US and others to reach from viewing the images and it is likely that an actual device will have a somewhat different design and that this was only a model mock-up.”
38North added that while the test “likely involved some form of fission-fusion (thermonuclear) reaction”, it was “not necessarily a two-stage device”.