North Korea has detonated so many underground nuclear bombs that the massive explosions could cause the country's mountain test site to collapse, according to scientists who monitor earthquakes caused by the atomic blasts, The Washington Post reported Friday.
The scientists have concluded that the 7,200-foot-high Mount Mantap in a remote area in the northeastern part of the country is suffering from a geological disorder known as "tired mountain syndrome."
"What we are seeing from North Korea looks like some kind of stress in the ground," said Paul G. Richards, a seismologist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
"In that part of the world, there were stresses in the ground but the explosions have shaken them up," he added.
Scientists observed that Mount Mantap visibly shifted after North Korea's test in September that was recorded as a 6.3 magnitude earthquake. North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un claimed the test was of a nuclear bomb 17 times stronger that the one the United States dropped in Hiroshima, one of two atomic bombs that forced Japan to surrender in 1945.
Scientists from China, which shares a border with North Korea, have warned that the repeated underground tests at Mount Mantap could make the mountain collapse and release radiation into the atmosphere.
Tired mountain syndrome is caused by nuclear explosions that weaken the surrounding rock.