Information emerging from furtive North Korea indicates that a tunnel at the regime’s nuclear test site collapsed last month after a nuclear test, killing about 200 people.

A report from Japanese broadcaster TV Asahi, citing unnamed sources, said 100 people were killed in an initial collapse around Sept. 10, and another 100 died in a rescue operation.

Other reports put the date of the collapse as Oct. 10. No official North Korean announcement was made about the date of the collapse.

North Korea’s massive Sept. 3 test caused multiple tremors and landslides in the region, according to Reuters.

Even before news of the tunnel collapse emerged, Western analysts had said the region might be unfit for more nuclear tests.

Reports that a tunnel collapsed triggered fears that radioactive material might also leak out.

Nam Jae-cheol, the chief of South Korea’s Korea Meteorological Administration, said Monday some type of collapse was likely.

“Based on our analysis of satellite imagery, we judge that there is a hollow space, which measures about 60 to 100 meters (in length), at the bottom of Mount Mantap in the Punggye-ri site,” he said. “So, should another nuke test occur, there is the possibility (of a collapse).”

Asked then whether an earthquake could trigger a release of radioactive materials, Nam said, “Should it sink, there is a possibility,” according to the South Korean Yonhap News Agency.

September’s hydrogen bomb detonation resulted in a 6.3 magnitude earthquake. Aftershocks led to a 3.4 magnitude quake on Sept. 23 and a 2.9 magnitude quake on Oct. 12.

Earlier this month, experts speculated that North Korea’s test site might have suffered irreversible damage.

“The explosion from the Sept. 3 test had such power that the existing tunnels within the underground testing site might have caved in,” said Kim So-gu, head researcher at the Korea Seismological Institute.

“I think the Punggye-ri region is now pretty saturated. If it goes ahead with another test in this area, it could risk radioactive pollution,” he added, as reported by Reuters.

A more powerful underground detonation at the current site could be “potentially suicidal,” not only because of damage from past tests, but also due to potential eruptions at Mount Paektu, a volcano only about 60 miles away, according to Kune Yull Suh, a professor of nuclear engineering at Seoul National University.

The website 38 North, which tracks North Korean activities, reported that the Punggye-ri nuclear test site did sustain damage from the last test.

It said there were “numerous landslides throughout the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site on the slopes of Mt. Mantap (and beyond) resulting from North Korea’s sixth nuclear test. These disturbances are more numerous and widespread than seen after any of the North’s previous five tests.” (For more from the author of “Kim’s Disaster: North Korean Nuclear Base Collapses, Killing at Least 200 People” please click HERE)

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Given the rising tensions between the United States and North Korea, much talk has centered around the the possibility of nuclear war.

However, experts believe there is another threat Americans need to be worried about.

According to a report presented earlier this month to a House Homeland Security subcommittee, North Korea could do far more damage to the populace with an electromagnetic pulse attack that could disable the electric grid.

An estimated 90 percent of the U.S. population could be wiped out by an EMP, which doesn’t have to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere in order to be effective.

Conventional ICBMs need to hit close to a physical target in order to be effective. But an EMP attached to a warhead could detonate hundreds of miles above land and still inflict massive devastation, as it would “shut down the U.S. electric power grid for an indefinite period,” according to the report.

Worse yet, North Korea could rig the EMP to explode even if it’s intercepted by U.S. missiles.

If such an attack were to happen, the consequences could inevitably lead to mass starvation.

“The U.S. can sustain a population of 320 million people only because of modern technology,” said Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, a nuclear strategist formerly with the CIA who recently testified before the subcommittee.

“An EMP that blacks out the electric grid for a year would (decimate) the critical infrastructure necessary to support such a large population,” he told Forbes.

Pry broke down a timeline of how the chaos might ensue, noting that after the first three days, the local food and grocery supply would be depleted. Eventually, stock in regional warehouses would begin to spoil.

After a year passed, about 90 percent of the US would die from “starvation, disease and societal collapse,” according to Forbes.

Initial casualties, however, would result from downed airplanes. An EMP would disrupt air traffic control systems and fry all airplane electronics.

“Airliners would crash killing many of the 500,000 people flying over North America at any given moment,” Pry said.

Still, NPR downplayed the possibility of an EMP attack — even when former Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey told the outlet an EMP poses the most immediate threat.

Moreover, James Clay Moltz, a professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, doesn’t think the danger is as serious as others have made it out to be.

“There are legitimate concerns about EMP effects, but a non-tested system by a country with limited missile experience lowers the immediate threat,” he said. “But predictions of mass U.S. casualties and demands for costly defenses against a (North Korean) EMP attack seem unjustified at this time.”

But Fry and Dr. William R. Graham, both of whom were part of the recently-defunded EMP commission, think otherwise.

“It is critical, therefore, that the U.S. national leadership address the EMP threat as a critical and existential issue,” they told the House subcommittee, as reported by Futurism. “And give a high priority to assuring the leadership is engaged and the necessary steps are taken to protect the country from EMP.”

When asked by Forbes what the U.S. could do to prevent an EMP attack, Pry suggested surgical strikes to destroy North Korea’s ICBMs.

However, he said if the government is looking for a less hostile move, an EMP-hardening of the electric grid and other critical infrastructure would be the next best bet. (For more from the author of “North Korean EMP Attack Would Cause Mass U.S. Starvation” please click HERE)

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Have North Korea’s nuclear tests become so big that they have altered the geological structure of the land? Some analysts now see signs that Mount Mantap, the 7,200-foot-high peak under which North Korea detonates its nuclear bombs, is suffering from “tired mountain syndrome.”

The mountain visibly shifted during the last nuclear test, an enormous detonation that was recorded as a 6.3-magnitude earthquake in North Korea’s northeast. Since then, the area, which is not known for natural seismic activity, has had three more quakes . . .

Chinese scientists already have warned that further nuclear tests could cause the mountain to collapse and release the radiation from the blast.

North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests since 2006, all of them in tunnels burrowed deep under Mount Mantap at a site known as the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Facility. Intelligence analysts and experts alike use satellite imagery to keep close track of movement at the three entrances to the tunnels for signals that a test might be coming. (Read more from “After Six Tests, the Mountain Hosting North Korea’s Nuclear Blasts May Be Exhausted” HERE)

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North Korea could acquire the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon to the United States within “months,” a top American spy official said Thursday.

“It is the case that they are close enough now in their capabilities that from a U.S. policy perspective, we ought to behave as if we are on the cusp of them achieving that objective,” Pompeo said during a question-and-answer session hosted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“When you’re now talking about months, our capacity to understand that at the detailed level is in some sense irrelevant,” he said. “Whether it happens on Tuesday or a month from Tuesday, we are at a time where the president has concluded that we need a global effort to ensure that Kim Jong Un doesn’t have that capacity.”

Pompeo’s artful assessment didn’t disguise the urgency of the North Korea nuclear threat, as he allowed that “intelligence is imperfect” but emphasized that every nuclear weapon or ballistic missile test heightens the danger posed by the regime. (Read more from “CIA Chief: North Korea Able to Nuke U.S. ‘Within Months'” HERE)

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The cybersecurity company FireEye says in a new report to private clients, obtained exclusively by NBC News, that hackers linked to North Korea recently targeted U.S. electric power companies with spearphishing emails.

The emails used fake invitations to a fundraiser to target victims, FireEye said. A victim who downloaded the invitation attached to the email would also be downloading malware into his or her computer network, according to the FireEye report. The company did not dispute NBC’s characterization of the report, but declined to comment.

There is no evidence that the hacking attempts were successful, but FireEye assessed that the targeting of electric utilities could be related to increasing tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, potentially foreshadowing a disruptive cyberattack.

“This is a signal that North Korea is a player in the cyber-intrusion field and it is growing in its ability to hurt us,” said C. Frank Figliuzzi, a former chief of counterintelligence at the FBI.

The FireEye report comes on the heels of an NBCNews.com report in August that U.S. intelligence officials are increasingly worried that North Korea will lash out against enhanced U.S. pressure by using its fearsome cyber capabilities to attack U.S. infrastructure. (Read more from “North Korea Targeted U.S. Electric Power Companies” HERE)

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