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[Starver]

Meanwhile, Best Korea's proactive film critics now proactive TV critics?

[smjjames]

NK is now rattling the metaphorical sabre so hard that it's vibrating by saying "Nuclear War may break out at any moment!". Hard to tell if they're being serious or just blustering.

[Reelya]

The latest news is that there was a major accident at NK's nuclear test site.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/10/31/200-dead-tunnel-accident-north-korea-nuclear-test-site-report

Apparently when they did that big nuclear test, the place collapsed killing 200 of their people.

[smjjames]

You could have linked to an actual article.... Trying to look now, CNN hasn't said anything.

[Reelya]

Apparently it happened a little while after the big nuclear test, but we're just finding out about it now. 200 dead because the base couldn't stand up to the blast. That makes it one of the biggest nuclear catastrophes in history.

Also consider that NK is a very small nation, if you look at that propotional to their size, the death toll is similar to 9/11. I'm guessing they lost some pretty important people from their nuclear program in that accident, too, which is one reason they've been so quiet about it.

[smjjames]

That's a rather indirect nuclear catastrophe. There was a reported tunnel collapse detected, but I guess nobody knew how serious it was, until now at least.

[Reelya]

If things collapse on top of you because of a nuclear explosion I'd count that as being killed by a nuclear explosion. e.g. for radiation we count deaths decades later as being caused by nuclear bombs, and we also count indirect deaths such as having stuff fall on you because of the blast as being nuclear cause of death. Why not a secondary collapse a few days later? If the tunnel collapsed on the same day or two days later that's not really any different for the cause of death.

EDIT: just note however, that some news articles are giving conflicting dates for when this occured, they don't agree on whether it was september or october right now, so we'll know more later. Still, it's notable because the scale of such an accident given NK's size is huge and would probably be a major blow to their program.

[smjjames]

Sounds more than a simple tunnel collapse, more like a whole network of tunnels. Also, there was an article saying (and is mentioned in the one you linked) that the mountain over the site was starting to collapse. I think that site may be too unstable to use anymore.

[Descan]

I feel like there might be room for some diplomatic outreach here, especially if it were some of the more contra-NK countries involved like the States or Canada or the U.K. offered, if they were to offer assistance in the rescue and clean-up, esp. the countries with experience dealing with nuclear incidents like the States (Three Mile) Japan (Fukushima, even if it wasn't as bad as people make it out to be) Russia (Chernobyl) or Chile (not nuclear, but they have dealt with rescuing people trapped underground recently)

I mean, I doubt the Kimmy would accept it; if for no other reason than it's a secret ("secret") nuclear test facility and they wouldn't want the Americans to learn about their cutting edge gerbil-on-treadmills power station technology (to go along with their early-modern ICBM tech; Ahhh, Norky priorities! "Nuke the world, but what's a lightbulb?") but it's a cheap way to gain diplomatic points just to *offer,* innit? Play The Game and all that.

[smjjames]

Only problem with that idea descan is that it's on a nuclear testing site, pretty much exactly the place that NK wouldn't want foreigners (Westerners at least) to have access to.

Also, diplomatic outreach would have been more easily done when it happened, not two months later. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try, even if it does conflict with their domestic narrative.

[Descan]

That's pretty much exactly what I said in the second paragraph.

And it's kind of hard to do diplomatic outreach for an accident or incident at the time it happened, if nobody knows the incident even occured.

[Reelya]

And they definitely don't want help. The amount of time since the accident is indeterminate, one source said three weeks ago, an earlier one pinpointed it to a few days after the nuclear test. It's probably the latter date then (oct 10), however, the sheer lack of available information many weeks after the incident is the telling thing. This is not something they want anyone outside to know about or be involved in.

[Starver]

Send in International Rescue anyway! Thunderbird 2 should have a pod or two capable of helping. There's the Mole and that rock-crusher vehicle, and it seems most of their vehicles are hermetically sealed, plus they also have various suits capable of withstanding heat, hazardous fumes, even radiation (which was handy, due to the heavy use of nuclear engines in their own vehicles, military craft, spacecraft, even civilian transportation and logging/road-construction vehicles...).

So, Brains and Gordon with Virgil. I'd let Tintin go in as well (very competent, much underused), but she'd probably end up getting kidnapped during the tenser moments of the rescue (though not if The Hood is involved, family and all), and FAB1 would probably need to used to solve that problem and clear up the multi-pronged climax.

(At last!  My time spent watching Thunderbirds as a boy, and mentally cataloguing their whole equipment lists turns out not to be as complete a waste of time as my parents told me it would be!)

[Descan]

I never thought that they would accept it, only that the mere offer might ease some tensions if done right. If not with NK, then perhaps with China or Russia.

[Paxiecrunchle]

Send in International Rescue anyway! Thunderbird 2 should have a pod or two capable of helping. There's the Mole and that rock-crusher vehicle, and it seems most of their vehicles are hermetically sealed, plus they also have various suits capable of withstanding heat, hazardous fumes, even radiation (which was handy, due to the heavy use of nuclear engines in their own vehicles, military craft, spacecraft, even civilian transportation and logging/road-construction vehicles...).

So, Brains and Gordon with Virgil. I'd let Tintin go in as well (very competent, much underused), but she'd probably end up getting kidnapped during the tenser moments of the rescue (though not if The Hood is involved, family and all), and FAB1 would probably need to used to solve that problem and clear up the multi-pronged climax.

(At last!  My time spent watching Thunderbirds as a boy, and mentally cataloguing their whole equipment lists turns out not to be as complete a waste of time as my parents told me it would be!)

wut.