North Korea moving nuclear weapons undercover in plans to ramp up production, new chilling satellite pics suggest
FEARS that North Korea will detonate another nuke are mounting after satellite photos revealed new activity at the site where its weapons are stockpiled.
The secretive state reportedly stashes all its nukes at Yongdoktong, an underground facility in the North Pyongan Province accessed via a pair of tunnels.
Up until now, the tunnel entrances were always visible in satellite photos, allowing international observers to keep tabs on comings and goings from the site.
But now it appears that the Kim regime has erected a new building to hide the entrances, fuelling speculation that the tyrant will soon try to move his nukes unnoticed.
Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in nuclear nonproliferation at Middlebury Institute, said that disguising the tunnel entrances could hide the evidence of an imminent weapons test.
“There are a number of different facilities at the site,” he said.
“The most important functions appear to be testing of high-explosives for nuclear weapons primaries and nuclear weapons storage.
“Until recently, this was believed to be North Korea's sole nuclear weapons storage site. It is a core facility for North Korea's nuclear programme.
“North Korea is believed to have about four dozen nuclear weapons, all of which are believed to be stored here.”
It comes in the wake of speculation that the country had revived its coal-fired steam plant after a two-year hiatus, suggesting they could be secretly extracting plutonium to make more nuclear weapons.
Smoke was spotted coming from the Nuclear Science and Weapons Research Centre on new satellite images at various times since late February, weeks after Kim vowed to expand his nuclear arsenal.
It is feared North Korea may have been readying itself for a war with the West all winter amid continuously rising tensions.
Satellite images at the rogue state's main Uranium Enrichment Plant showed increased activity at the site early this year with the movement of specialised vehicles and equipment.
Lewis continued: “North Korea has now built a structure that obscures a pair of tunnel entrances.
“The new structure is nondescript. It looks like a large building with a pitched roof, although it is in fact a tunnel entrance.
“North Korea may wish to have a covered area where vehicles can park while loading or unloading nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons components.
“Activity at the tunnel entrance might signal an upcoming nuclear test.”
The new structure appears to have taken shape over the course of 2020.
Only one year earlier, Kim Jong-un and former President Donald Trump had met in Vietnam to discuss denuclearisation.
A US intelligence source said that the facility was – and continued to be – used for North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
“Yongdoktong has been previously identified by US intelligence as a suspected North Korean nuclear weapons storage facility and is still believed to be used for that purpose,” they told CNN.
The site appears to have first come on to the radar in the 1990s, when US officials briefed their South Korean and Japanese counterparts about it.
North Korea was branded the biggest threat to the world by The Council on Foreign Relations amid fears Kim may ramp up weapons testing to taunt US President Joe Biden.
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The CFR branded their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile tests as the top-ranked conflict concern for 2021 after Kim declared the US is North Korea's "foremost principal enemy".
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The capital Pyongyang recently unveiled two new super-weapons, a submarine launched missile and North Korea's biggest ever ICBM, the Hwasong-16.
North Korea has not conducted a nuclear weapons test since September 3, 2017.
