A study of satellite images suggests that recent floods in North Korea may have linked harmful pump houses to the country’s main nuclear facility, a U.S. think tank said on Thursday.
Analysts at 38 North, a website monitoring North Korea, said commercial satellite images from August 6 to 11 showed how vulnerable the nuclear reactor cooling systems of Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center are to extreme weather events.
The Korean Peninsula has been hammered by one of the longest cleansing spells in recent history, with floods and landscapes causing damage and death in both North and South Korea.
Located on the banks of the Kuryong River, about 100 km (60 miles) north of the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, Yongbyon is home to nuclear reactors, fire-treatment plants and uranium enrichment facilities thought to be used in nuclear energy. weapons program of the country.
The five megawatt reactor – believed to be used to produce plutonium from weapons – does not appear to have worked for some time, and an experimental light water reactor (ELWR) has not yet come online, but such flooding in the future would probably force a shutdown. , said the 38 North report.
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North Korea may restart nuclear plant |
“Damage to the pumps and pipes in the pump houses presents the greatest vulnerability to the reactors,” the report said.
“If the reactors were working, for example, the inability to cool them would require them to shut down.”
The Yongbyon reactor is thought to be the source of weapons-grade plutonium for North Korea.
According to the Yonhap news agency of South Korea, Pyongyang can reap the value of one nuclear bomb of plutonium by processing spent fuel rods from the reactor.
While the downstream continued to flow, it did not appear to reach the Uranium Enrichment Plant of the Yongbyon facility, and on August 11, it appeared that the waters had somewhat receded, 38 North said.
South Korea’s National Defense Ministry declined to comment on the report, but said it was always monitoring developments related to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and maintaining close cooperation with the US government.
At a summit with US President Donald Trump in Vietnam in 2019, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offered to dismantle Yongbyon in exchange for relief from a variety of international sanctions imposed on North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs -Korea.
At the time, Trump said he was rejecting that deal because Yongbyon is only one part of the North’s nuclear program, and was not enough of a concession to free up so many sanctions.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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