Nuclear threat: experts chose countries whose ecology was damaged by North Korean missile tests

Tens of thousands of North Koreans and residents of South Korea, Japan and China may be exposed to radioactive materials emitted from groundwater flowing under the North Korean nuclear test site. Reuters writes that this was expressed by human rights activists from Seoul.

The publication reported that, according to the governments of the United States and South Korea, North Korea secretly conducted six nuclear weapons tests between 2006 and 2017 at the Pungeri test site in the mountainous North Hamgyong province. Seoul and Washington said Pyongyang may be preparing for a seventh nuclear test.

It is also reported that radioactive materials may have spread to eight provinces and districts close to the test site. More than one million North Koreans live in this region, who use groundwater, including drinking water. But neighboring South Korea, China and Japan may be partly at risk from smuggling agricultural and fisheries products from North Korea.

As Hubert Yang-hwan Lee, chair of the Transitional Justice Working Group, said, North Korea’s nuclear tests could threaten the right to life and health of not only the North Korean people, but also those living in South Korea and other neighboring countries.

Journalists write that in 2015, the South Korean Food Safety Agency found a radioactive isotope of cesium 9 times the standard level in imported chestnut mushrooms sold as a Chinese product despite their true origin in North Korea.

China and Japan reportedly stepped up radiation monitoring, with North Korea raising concerns about potential exposure following previous nuclear tests.

Many outside experts have expressed concerns about the potential health risk from contaminated water, but North Korea dismissed these concerns, saying no harmful substances had leaked from past nuclear tests without providing evidence.

Previously Focus He wrote that Kim Jong-un said directly that he was preparing North Korea for a possible war. The North Korean leader presided over a meeting of the Central Military Commission of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party. At the meeting, the officials discussed the country’s “main military-political tasks” for 2023 and long-term issues related to the orientation towards “army building”.

The DPRK later announced that the United States and South Korea were preparing for an offensive war. The North Korean Foreign Ministry said the situation on the Korean Peninsula would again enter a “deadly vortex of tension and escalation”.