North Korea confirms nuclear test!

SEOUL, South Korea - May 25, 2009 - North Korea said it had carried out a second and more powerful nuclear test, despite international pressure to rein in its nuclear programs after years of disarmament talks.

The communist state, which stunned the world by testing an atomic bomb for the first time in October 2006, had threatened another test after the UN Security Council censured it following a long-range rocket launch in April.

The North “successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defense in every way,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

“The current nuclear test was safely conducted on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology,” it said.

Across the border in South Korea, President Lee Myung-Bak convened an emergency National Security Council meeting for later in the day, and both South Korea and Japan announced the formation of government crisis teams.

Japan said it may try to get the UN Security Council to meet over the nuclear test.

The KCNA report gave no details of the location of the test. But South Korean officials said a tremor was detected around the northeastern town of Kilju, near where the first test was conducted in October 2006.

The U.S. Geological Survey said it detected a 4.7-magnitude earthquake in North Korea, which it said struck 375 kilometers (230 miles) northeast of Pyongyang - also around the same region as the North’s first atomic test.