North Korea: Analysts say nuclear blast shows resemblance to last test

Previous North Korean nuclear tests produced explosions which increased by factors of 3 or 5 every time until reaching a size equivalent to a normal atomic bomb in 2013, Park wrote.

The Supreme leader of North Korea - Kim Jong-un.
(Aljazeera)

Analysis of seismic waves created by North Korea's fourth nuclear test on Wednesday shows they were almost identical to those generated in its last test, according to an analyst, undermining its claim to have tested a hydrogen bomb.

"Seismic signals from the January 2016 detonation at the North Korean nuclear facility bear an uncanny resemblance to the signals recorded for the February 12, 2013 detonation," Jeffrey Park, a seismologist at Yale University wrote in a post on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists website.

Previous North Korean nuclear tests produced explosions which increased by factors of 3 or 5 every time until reaching a size equivalent to a normal atomic bomb in 2013, Park wrote.

The data indicates Wednesday's test used an "identical design", the analyst said.