Seoul to verify North Korea`s nuclear test in days
26 May, 2009
SEOUL: South Korea said Tuesday it expects to be able to verify North Korea`s second nuclear test within days by analysing air samples for radioactive material.
Air-sampling equipment was operational at 70 different places across the country as well as on a vessel and an aircraft off the peninsula, officials said. "It depends on the wind speed (from North Korea), but we are expecting to secure the air samples we need within a few days -- as early as Wednesday," Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety spokesman Kim Sang-Hyun told.
President Lee Myung-Bak told a cabinet meeting Tuesday it would take "two or three days" for Seoul to officially confirm Monday`s test. South Korea had to wait more than a fortnight before it could confirm the North`s first nuclear test in October 2006.
The institute, based in the central city of Daejeon, has operated a 20-strong task force to analyse air-sampling data round the clock since Monday. After the first test, it announced plans to buy high-tech systems from Sweden and Germany that can detect minute atmospheric traces of certain gases including krypton, which are released by reprocessing or by a nuclear test.
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