N Korea Gearing Up for Nuclear Test - Report

A South Korean activist burns a flag and portraits of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un during a rally in Seoul, South Korea, 24 March 2012, against North Korea`s planned rocket launch. EPA/BGNES

North Korea is preparing for its third nuclear test, according to a media report.

The nuclear test will allegedly take place in Punggye-ri nuclear test cite in northeast North Korea, where the communist country conducted two previous nuclear tests, in 2006 and in 2009.

"North Korea is making clandestine preparations for a third nuclear test at Punggye-ri in North Hamkyong Province, where it conducted two nuclear tests in the past," an unnamed intelligence official has told the South Korean Yonhap news agency.

Satellite images have shown piles of earth and sand at the entrance of a tunnel in the Punggye-ri site, Yonhap says. The soil is believed to have been brought to the site to plug the tunnel, one of final steps before carrying out a nuclear test blast.

Pyongyang announced in March that it plans to launch a satellite into space this month, a move that the US, Japan and South Korea view it as a disguised missile test.

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