On the 24th of May, 2018, North Korea took a powerful step of peace towards the United States and South Korea by destroying its main nuclear testing site near Punggye-ri. A mountain in this area alone bore witness to the test launches of 6 powerful nuclear weapons, all of which had proved to be successful. However, owing to the oncoming meetings with the United States and maintaining the promise of Denuclearization of Korea, Kim Jong Un had agreed to destroy this testing site forever. However, hours after the development, US President Donald Trump officially stated that the proposed meeting with North Korean leader had been called off.
About 30 foreign journalists from various countries had been allowed to witness the decimation of the mountain from a distance. All of these reporters confirmed that all the observation outposts and entries to the mountain were blown to smithereens with an explosion. This testing site was situated 10 miles north of Punggye-ri and consisted of several tunnels running beneath the mountains. The site only had four entrance portals – the east portal had been subjected to one nuclear test back in 2006 before it was closed off. The north portal suffered through 5 immensely powerful hydrogen explosions, all of which had an explosive yield of 250 kilotons. To establish a comparison, the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 had explosive yields of 15 kilotons only.
However, in prior statements, Kim Jong Un had stated that North Korea would no longer require landmarks to test their nuclear weapons, as it was a method of warfare they had already mastered by now. This claim of showing superiority over the rest of the countries regarding their nuclear weapons backed up by the unanimous plan to make peace and denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, led Kim Jong Un to raze the site to the ground in front of representatives from all the major countries on Thursday afternoon.