N Korea expected N-test to yield a 4 kilotonne blast

WASHINGTON: North Korea expected its nuclear test to yield a blast of about four kilotonnes, US media reported on Tuesday. "The North Koreans, in a call to the Chinese shortly before the test was conducted, said it would be four kilotonnes," the Washington Post reported, citing an unnamed US government official.   

"A senior Bush administration official said he had learned through Asian contacts that the North Koreans had expected the detonation to have a force of about four kilotonnes," The New York Times said.   

US intelligence detected an explosion of less than one kilotonne in magnitude, a senior intelligence official said on Monday, after North Korea announced that it had conducted an underground nuclear test.   

Seismologists recorded a big blast from a remote northeastern area of the isolated communist country.    

US and South Korean authorities have since been trying to verify whether it was a nuclear test and, if so, whether or not it was a success.   

The nuclear bomb that the United States dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 had a force of 15 kilotonnes.