September 17, 2004 - 2:00 PM

S.Korea says no big blast in N.Korea

By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's latest assessment of a widely reported explosion in North Korea last week
is that there was no blast at all at the suspected site, a vice minister says.

Seismic signals and strange cloud formations picked up last week were not from an explosion, vice
minister of unification, Rhee Bong-jo, told reporters on Friday.

A security analyst said a week of speculation and confusion over reports of a blast was likely the result
of what amounted to an intelligence failure. Initial reports even suggested a nuclear test could have been
carried out.

International talks have been held on North Korea's nuclear programmes but they have made little
progress.

Foreign diplomats who visited on Thursday what they were told was the site of the mysterious explosion
said it was a hydroelectric project under construction. But South Korea said they had been taken to the wrong
place.

South Korea said the diplomats had been about 60 miles away from the suspected location in remote
Kimhyungjik county on the Chinese border. But the story became even more convoluted when Rhee said there had
been no blast at all.

"There is no information to support an explosion in the area where there were indications of an
explosion," Rhee said.

"It is likely the peculiar cloud was natural cloud," Rhee said, referring to initial reports of a
mushroom cloud. He said seismic activity had probably been from around Mount Paektu, on the Chinese border,
even further from Kimhyungjik county.

Yun Duk-min of South Korea's Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security said a failure of
intelligence and the suspicion with which secretive North Korea is viewed contributed to the confusion.

"This appears to have been an intelligence failure as we looked into a very closed society," Yun told
Reuters.

"The heightened level of alert in the way the international community looks at North Korea likely bred
this incident," he said. "It looks like we fell into a trap."

North Korea says the explosion was demolition work for a power plant. Rhee said that was probably a
reference to work in Samsu county, where the diplomats went.

Western diplomats said the group had been flown and taken by road to a large construction site in Samsu
on Thursday.

German Ambassador to North Korea Doris Hertrampf said from Pyongyang that the group of diplomats had been
told blasts on September 8 and 9 were larger than usual to speed up work on a dam.

"I saw there was a huge hole in the ground, and a huge amount of earth moving going on. I'd guess it must
have been a blast," she said by telephone.

DIPLOMATS AWAIT FINDINGS

So far none of the diplomats on the tour has expressed doubts about the location. Britain said it needed
to await the findings.

The diplomats inspected the site in Samsu for 90 minutes and were allowed to take photographs, British
Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell said in a statement.

"The information they gathered will be reported back to technical experts in capitals. We now need to
await their findings," Rammell said.

The group was told the blasts were conducted last Wednesday and Thursday, not just on one day as
initially reported by foreign media, a Western diplomat said.

North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun told Rammell on Monday the reported explosion was part of work
to remove a mountain to make way for a hydroelectric project.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told Reuters on Tuesday North Korea's explanation squared with
Washington's view.

Polish Ambassador Wojciech Kaluza said the North Korean project manager said there were 50,000 workers at
the site and he gave figures for the amount of explosives used and the amount of soil to be removed, Japan's
Kyodo news agency reported.

It quoted Germany's envoy as saying more blasts were planned.

The United States, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China have been holding talks with the
North on its suspected nuclear weapons programmes. They have made little progress.