Koreans got strange diseases after missile tests

NBC News channel quoted a number of North Korean defectors said Pyongyang's are creating a "ghost disease" epidemic , causing birth defects and weakening people's health.

A fugitive who lived near the Korean Punggye-ri nuclear test site named Lee Jeong Hwa said: "Too many people were killed so we started calling it " ghost disease. " At first, we thought a lot. "People are killed by poverty and hunger. Now we know the cause is due to radiation." Ms. Lee has fled her home in Kilju County, home to North Korea's nuclear test site, Punggye-ri since 2010.

During the time she lived there, under the leadership of the Kim Jong Il era, two nuclear bombs were discovered near her home. Since the death of leader Kim Jong II in 2011, his son and heir Kim Jong Un have experimented four more times. Kim Jong Un announced the September trial was a hydrogen bomb.

According to the World Health Organization, radiation can reduce the function of tissues and organs, depending on the level of exposure. At lower doses, it said, there is a long-term risk of cancer.

Koreans say that many babies in the area near the missile test site were born without genital organs.

Ms. Lee is one of 30 defectors from North Korea's Kilju province and tested for radiation by the Korean Unification Ministry. Another fugitive from Kilju, Ms. Rhee Yeong Sil said a neighbor of hers gave birth to a child without a genitals.

There is very little scientific basis to support the claims of North Korean defectors for radioactive contamination, especially because the outside cannot access North Korea's nuclear test sites for inspection.

Suh Kune-yull, professor of nuclear engineering at Seoul National University (SNU), said the fact that researchers are "missing data".

"I don't think they lie," Kune-yull said of the fugitives. "We have to take their testimony, but I don't have much reliable information."

A spokesman for the Korea Nuclear Safety Institute told NBC News that "assumption" that exposure to radioactive materials from underground inspection sites was excessive, but it was difficult to confirm.

However, in the context of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un promoting weapons testing this year, there has been much information from Korea that Pyongyang's nuclear tests are destroying the environment. local and deformities for babies.