In the first known launch of a weapon under development that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hopes can overwhelm South Korea’s and the United States’ missile defenses, the country stated on Thursday that it had successfully tested a multiwarhead missile.

South Korea promptly rejected the assertion as an attempt to conceal an unsuccessful launch. According to North Korea’s official media, the launch on Wednesday demonstrated the capacity of the Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles to separate and operate individual mobile warheads.

It said that a decoy that detached from the missile was confirmed by radar and that the separated warheads “were guided correctly to the three coordinate targets.” If verified, it would be North Korea’s first public launch associated with the development of a multiwarhead missile, although one in its early stages.

Later on Thursday, the South Korean military said that the combined study by South Korean and American officials concluded that the North Korean missile launch was unsuccessful.

The North Korean missile burst on its first flight, but Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Lee Sung Joon informed reporters that warheads are separated in descending phases during MIRV testing. He said that images of the launch taken by North Korea revealed a missile like the liquid-fuel Hwasong-17 ICBM that the nation tested in March 2023.

According to an earlier assessment made by the South Korean military on Wednesday, a hypersonic missile suspected of being solid-fueled was launched, burst off the coast of North Korea’s east, and scattered pieces into the ocean. It claimed to have found more smoke than usual during launches, which may indicate a problem with combustion brought on by an engine malfunction.

During a meeting of the governing party in early 2021, Kim listed several high-tech military systems on his wish list. These included hypersonic weapons, surveillance satellites, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, and submarine-launched nuclear missiles.

North Korea has conducted several tests to create this kind of weaponry

Ankit Panda, a senior analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said, “I had been anticipating a MIRV test for some time now, as this was one of the last remaining items on Kim Jong Un’s modernization wish list from the 8th Party Congress back in January 2021.”

According to Panda, the test on Wednesday seemed to be a preliminary assessment of some of the essential subsystems needed to create a functional MIRV. He anticipates that a series of technical tests will come before an intercontinental ballistic missile is launched on an elevated trajectory. According to Panda, “South Korea initially misinterpreted the nature of this test.”

According to Lee Choon Geun, an honorary research fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute in South Korea, North Korea seems to have started testing several multiwarhead missile components. He said that more testing is anticipated to refine multiwarhead missile technology in other areas, including as separation and guidance control.

According to Chang Young-keun, a missile specialist at Seoul’s Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, the North Korean test hasn’t yet shown that it has the necessary MIRV-controlling capabilities for ICBMs.

He said that North Korea provided insufficient data to confirm that its MIRVs successfully reentered the atmosphere and struck their intended targets. Panda said that it is important that a dummy be used in the North Korean test. However, South Korea’s military claimed it could not instantly verify if North Korea had the capability to construct a ruse of this kind.

Panda said, “North Korea has not concealed its goal to undermine and surpass American homeland missile defenses.” “Decoys will help with that effort and probably end up on their single-warhead missiles as well.”

The North Korean test, its first weaponry demonstration in a month, coincided with demonstrations against the U.S. aircraft carrier’s regional deployment for the first-ever joint training with South Korea and Japan. On Monday, North Korean Vice Defense Minister Kim Kang Il denounced th” the carrier’s deployment as recklessand warned with undefined consequences.

The multidomain South Korea-U.S.-Japan training started on Thursday and will last three days, according to the South Korean military. According to the statement, the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt will be joined by destroyers, fighter fighters, and helicopters from all three nations for the “Freedom Edge” drill. Drills for maritime interdiction, anti-submarine warfare, and missile defense will be part of the training.

Additionally, in what it has characterized as a tit-for-tat reaction to South Korean activists delivering political literature via their own balloons, North Korea has flown a large number of trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea in recent weeks. In retaliation, South Korea aired propaganda audio over loudspeakers in border regions for a limited period on June 9, which it had not done in years.

On Thursday, South Korea threatened to switch on the loudspeakers once again if North Korea continued to deliver garbage balloons. Concerns over North Korea also increased last week when Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin struck an agreement stipulating that each nation help the other in the event of an attack and promising to increase cooperation.

According to analysts, the agreement signifies the most robust relationship between the two nations since the conclusion of the Cold War. According to the expert Lee, North Korea’s ability to finish developing a multiwarhead weapon hinges on whether and to what extent Russia offers technological help. The South Korean military said that there is no proof of Russian support for the MIRV program in North Korea.

In the first known launch of a weapon under development that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hopes can overwhelm South Korea’s and the United States’ missile defenses, the country stated on Thursday that it had successfully tested a multiwarhead missile. South Korea promptly rejected the assertion as an attempt to conceal an unsuccessful launch.

According to North Korea’s official media, the launch on Wednesday demonstrated the capacity of the Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles to separate and operate individual mobile warheads. It said that a decoy that detached from the missile was confirmed by radar and that the separated warheads “were guided correctly to the three coordinate targets.”

If verified, it would be North Korea’s first public launch associated with the development of a multiwarhead missile, although one in its early stages. Later on Thursday, the South Korean military said that the combined study by South Korean and American officials concluded that the North Korean missile launch was unsuccessful.

The North Korean missile burst on its first flight, but Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Lee Sung Joon informed reporters that warheads are separated in descending phases during MIRV testing. He said that images of the launch taken by North Korea revealed a missile like the liquid-fuel Hwasong-17 ICBM that the nation tested in March 2023.

According to an earlier assessment made by the South Korean military on Wednesday, a hypersonic missile suspected of being solid-fueled was launched, burst off the coast of North Korea’s east, and scattered pieces into the ocean. It claimed to have found more smoke than usual during launches, which may indicate a problem with combustion brought on by an engine malfunction.

During a meeting of the governing party in early 2021, Kim listed several high-tech military systems on his wish list. These included hypersonic weapons, surveillance satellites, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, and submarine-launched nuclear missiles. Since then, North Korea has conducted several tests to create these kinds of weaponry.

Ankit Panda, a senior analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said, “I had been anticipating a MIRV test for some time now, as this was one of the last remaining items on Kim Jong Un’s modernization wish list from the 8th Party Congress back in January 2021.”

According to Panda, the test on Wednesday seemed to be a preliminary assessment of some of the essential subsystems needed to create a functional MIRV. He anticipates that a series of technical tests will come before an intercontinental ballistic missile is launched on an elevated trajectory. According to Panda, “South Korea initially misinterpreted the nature of this test.”

According to Lee Choon Geun, an honorary research fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute in South Korea, North Korea seems to have started testing several multiwarhead missile components. He said that more testing is anticipated to refine multiwarhead missile technology in other areas, including separation and guidance control.

According to Chang Young-keun, a missile specialist at Seoul’s Korea Research Institute for National Strategy, the North Korean test hasn’t yet shown that it has the necessary MIRV-controlling capabilities for ICBMs. He said that North Korea provided insufficient data to confirm that its MIRVs successfully reentered the atmosphere and struck their intended targets.

Panda said that it is important that a dummy be used in the North Korean test. However, South Korea’s military claimed it could not instantly verify if North Korea had the capability to construct a ruse of this kind.

Panda said, “North Korea has not concealed its goal to undermine and surpass American homeland missile defenses.” “Decoys will help with that effort and probably end up on their single-warhead missiles as well.”

The North Korean test, which was its first weaponry demonstration in a month, coincided with demonstrations against the U.S. aircraft carrier’s regional deployment for the first-ever joint training with South Korea and Japan. On Monday, North Korean Vice Defense Minister Kim Kang Il denounced” the carrier’s deployment as reckless and warned of undefined consequences.

The multidomain South Korea-U.S.-Japan training started on Thursday and will last for three days, according to the South Korean military. According to the statement, the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt will be joined by destroyers, fighter fighters, and helicopters from all three nations for the “Freedom Edge” drill. Drills for maritime interdiction, anti-submarine warfare, and missile defense will be part of the training.

Additionally, in what it has characterized as a tit-for-tat reaction to South Korean activists delivering political literature via their balloons, North Korea has flown a large number of trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea in recent weeks. In retaliation, South Korea aired propaganda audio over loudspeakers in border regions for a limited period on June 9, which it had not done in years. On Thursday, South Korea threatened to switch on the loudspeakers once again if North Korea continued to deliver garbage balloons.

Concerns over North Korea also increased last week when Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin struck an agreement stipulating that each nation help the other in the event of an attack and promising to increase cooperation. According to analysts, the agreement signifies the most robust relationship between the two nations since the conclusion of the Cold War.

According to the expert Lee, North Korea’s ability to finish developing a multiwarhead weapon hinges on whether and to what extent Russia offers technological help. The South Korean military said that there is no proof of Russian support for the MIRV program in North Korea.

Related VOR News:

US Supreme Court Rejects Drug Deal that Protects the Sackler Family

Mount Rainier, Washington’s snowcapped peak that stands 4.3 kilometers (2.7 miles) above sea level, has not had a significant volcanic eruption in the last 1,000 years. More than Hawaii’s exploding lava fields or Yellowstone’s vast supervolcano, Mount Rainier has many US volcanologists concerned.

“Mount Rainier keeps me awake at night because it poses a significant threat to the nearby villages. “Tacoma and South Seattle are built on 100-foot-thick (30.5-meter) ancient mudflows from Mount Rainier eruptions,” said Jess Phoenix, a volcanologist and ambassador for the Union of Concerned Scientists, on an episode of CNN’s “Violent Earth With Liv Schreiber.”

Why Mount Rainier Is The US Volcano Keeping Scientists Up At Night

The sleeping giant’s deadly potential does not stem from flaming lava flows, which, in the case of an eruption, are unlikely to spread more than a few miles beyond the boundary of Mount Rainier National Park in the Pacific Northwest. According to the US Geological Survey, most volcanic ash will likely drift downwind to the east, away from populated centers.

Instead, many scientists are concerned about a lahar, a fast-moving slurry of water and volcanic rock formed when ice or snow is rapidly melted by an eruption. Lahars gather debris as they run down valleys and drainage channels.

According to Seth Moran, a research seismologist at USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington, Mount Rainier’s tall height and ice and snow cover make it resilient to eruptive activity. “Hot stuff … will melt the cold stuff and a lot of water will start coming down,” he explained.

“And there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people who live in areas that potentially could be impacted by a large lahar, and it could happen quite quickly.”

A lahar is a rapidly flowing debris flow.
The deadliest lahar in recent memory occurred in November 1985, when Colombia’s Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupted. Just a few hours after the eruption began, a flow of mud, rocks, lava, and freezing water surged over the village of Armero, killing over 23,000 people in minutes.

In an episode of CNN’s “Violent Earth,” Bradley Pitcher, a volcanologist and Columbia University lecturer in Earth and environmental sciences, described a hardened, concrete substance that can be difficult to escape.

Pitcher stated that Mount Rainier had approximately eight times the amount of glaciers and snow Nevado del Ruiz had when it erupted. “There’s the potential to have a much more catastrophic mudflow.”

According to the US Geological Survey’s 2018 threat assessment, Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano is the most dangerous in the US, which is unsurprising given its proximity to the population and periodic eruptions. Mount St. Helens exploded violently in May 1980 and was voted second most dangerous, followed by Mount Rainier in third.

Lahars are most commonly associated with volcanic eruptions, but landslides and earthquakes can also create them. Moran said geologists have discovered evidence that at least 11 massive lahars from Mount Rainier have reached the surrounding area, known as the Puget Lowlands, over the last 6,000 years.

Scientists have not linked the most recent of these lahars, which occurred approximately 500 years ago, to any volcanic activity. According to analysts, the flow event could have been the result of a huge landslide on the mountain’s west face.

The loose, weak rock remains in that location, and Moran and other volcanologists are particularly concerned about the possibility of a similar, spontaneous landslide-induced lahar.

Why Mount Rainier Is The US Volcano Keeping Scientists Up At Night

“We now know that the volcano can do it again. “And then we’re in this world where anything can happen at any time,” Moran explained.

“If it were the same size, it would be 10 minutes to the nearest places where people live and 60 minutes to the nearest significant settlements. “And those are very short time frames,” he added.

A 2022 study considered two worst-case scenarios. In the first scenario, a 260 million cubic meter, 4 meter deep (9.2 billion cubic feet, 13-foot deep) lahar would form on Mount Rainier’s west slope. According to Moran, the debris flow would be equivalent to 104,000 Olympic-size pools and could reach the heavily populated lowlands of Orting, Washington, roughly an hour after an eruption, moving at a rate of 13 feet (4 meters) per second.

According to the simulation, a second “pronounced hazard” area is the Nisqually River Valley, where a major lahar may displace enough water from Alder Lake to allow the 100-meter-tall (330-foot-tall) Alder Dam to spill over.

Mount Rainier’s neighbor, Mount St. Helens, farther south in the Cascade Range, erupted four decades ago, causing a disastrous lahar that did not reach any highly populated regions.

Venus Dergan and her then-boyfriend, Roald Reitan, were trapped in the Mount St. Helens lahar while on a camping vacation and are among the few persons known to have survived being swept up in a debris flow.

“I tried to cling on as we were swept downstream, but the tree bark was scraping. … During an interview for CNN’s “Violent Earth,” she recounted feeling it on her legs and arms.

“At one point, I went under the logs and dirt and accepted that this was the end. I was not going to get out of this, and I was going to die.

Why Mount Rainier Is The US Volcano Keeping Scientists Up At Night

Following the explosion of Mount St. Helens, the US Geological Survey established a lahar detection system on Mount Rainier in 1998, which has been modified and expanded since 2017.

About 20 places on the volcano’s slopes and the two paths identified as most at risk of a lahar now have broadband seismometers that send real-time data and additional sensors such as trip wires, infrasound sensors, web cameras, and GPS receivers.

Moran explained that the device is designed to identify both a lahar if the volcano erupts in the future and a lahar caused by a landslide.

Because of the constraints of 1990s technology, the original system had limited bandwidth and power requirements, resulting in data transmission every two minutes.

In March, 45,000 kids from Puyallup, Sumner-Bonney Lake, Orting, White River, and Carbonado, Washington, took part in a lahar evacuation simulation. According to the USGS, this was the first time numerous school districts exercised on the same day, making it the world’s largest lahar drill.

Approximately 13,000 pupils walked up to 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) to specified areas outside of the defined lahar zone, while the remaining schools outside the lahar zone practiced sheltering in place.

Moran stated that the fail-safe components of the Lahar detection system are roughly 45 minutes away from the next significant community; thus, that was the time window within which communities had to work.

“Most of what happens at volcanoes is close by, and that’s why you try to keep people away because things happen fast, but lahars can travel a long way from the volcano and have a big impact.”

SOURCE – (CNN)

The official death toll from this year’s Hajj pilgrimage has risen to around 500, but the true toll could be more than double that, with reports indicating that up to 600 Egyptian worshippers died on the way to Mecca in terrible heat.

At least 14 Malaysians, 165 Indonesians, 75 Jordanians, 35 Pakistanis, 49 Tunisians, 11 Iranians, and 98 Indians have died, according to officials in each nation. Another 27 Jordanians have been hospitalized, while about 14 are still missing, according to the Jordanian Foreign Ministry.

The US State Department stated that many US citizens perished on the Hajj trip but did not disclose a specific number. “We can confirm the deaths of several US Americans in Saudi Arabia. “We extend our heartfelt condolences to the families on their loss,” said a State Department official, adding that the government is ready to provide consular support.

Nearly 500 Confirmed Fatalities From Hajj Heatwave As Hundreds More Feared Dead

Dozens more Iranians have also been hospitalized for heatstroke and other ailments, according to Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.

According to CNN, the current official death toll from this year’s trip is at least 480.

The death toll is expected to grow significantly further, as Saudi Arabia and Egypt have yet to reveal official data. Furthermore, governments only know about pilgrims who have registered and traveled to Mecca as part of their country’s quota; further deaths are expected among unregistered pilgrims.

This year’s pilgrims endured dangerously high temperatures of up to 49 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit).

According to the Egyptian president, the crisis unit, led by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, will “provide support for families of the deceased.”

According to the statement, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has also directed the unit to “speedy coordination with Saudi Arabian authorities to facilitate the return of the bodies” of those who died.

According to a statement issued by the Egyptian cabinet on Thursday, the official death toll is 28. However, Reuters news agency and other agencies have reported that up to 500 to 600 Egyptians died on the route.

Egyptian officials said they were striving to compile an exact list of victims and missing persons. The disparity originates from the many unregistered pilgrims who are not considered among those who have registered and traveled to Mecca as part of their country’s quota.

Thousands more were treated for heatstroke as an estimated 1.8 million Muslims braved the sweltering weather.

According to The Associated Press, the Saudi Ministry of Health implemented safety measures such as cooling stations along the official route and encouraged pilgrims to use umbrellas and stay hydrated. Despite this, this year’s celebration was marred by tragedy, raising concerns about whether more could have been done to secure people’s safety.

Nearly 500 Confirmed Fatalities From Hajj Heatwave As Hundreds More Feared Dead

It also emphasizes the dangers posed to the many unregistered worshippers who wish to accomplish their religious duty but do not have Hajj permission and do not have access to official facilities.

At least 68 Jordanians who died of heatstroke while conducting Hajj rituals have been granted burial permission to be laid to rest in Mecca at the request of their families, according to Sufian Qudah, Head of the Jordanian Directorate of Operations and Consular Affairs.

Dr. Mohd Na’im Mokhtar, Malaysia’s Minister for Religious Affairs, stated that the majority of pilgrims died from “heart disease, pneumonia, and blood infection,” according to the state-run Bernama News Agency. The Bernama article did not clarify whether the deceased were part of the country’s official Hajj delegation.

On Friday, a spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs revealed the deaths of the 98 Indian nationals, saying: “These deaths have happened on account of natural illness, natural causes, chronic illness, and also old age.”

Nearly 500 Confirmed Fatalities From Hajj Heatwave As Hundreds More Feared Dead

On Saturday, the day when Muslims congregate at Mount Arafat, where the Prophet Mohammed is reputed to have delivered his final sermon, six Indian people perished from high heat, while another four died from “accidents,” according to the spokesperson.

In the aftermath of the fatalities, Tunisia’s President Kais Saied fired the country’s minister of religious affairs. Before his dismissal, Ibrahim Chaibi admitted the possibility of negligence in the care of pilgrims. “The negligence could have occurred. It will be present, and we will review it at the ministry level; whomever fails will face consequences,” Chaibi said on Friday.

SOURCE – (CNN)