Seismic Signals from North Korea Registered in Switzerland

Seismic waves most likely originating from a nuclear test in North Korea reached as far as the Swiss Seismological Service (SED) monitoring stations during the night of January 5 to 6. According to reports from the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) in Vienna and other international seismological services, the event had a magnitude of approximately 5 and occurred at 1.30 a.m. (UTC). It occurred at approximately the same location as North Korea’s previous nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, and 2013. The signal reached Switzerland around 12 minutes later.

The CTBTO operates a global observation network to monitor adherence to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, with almost 340 monitoring stations, of which 170 are seismological. With the SED DAVOX station in Davos in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland is also part of this monitoring network. The graph depicts the nuclear-test signal recorded by the DAVOX station in 2013 alongside the events of January 6, 2016. They are extremely similar, which points to both events having a similar cause.

Together with the Spiez Laboratory, the SED is the designated national data center for the CTBTO and plays an active role in CTBTO organs and work groups.

Further information on the CTBTO

General information on the collaboration between the SED and the CTBTO