North Korea today revealed it had detonated a hydrogen bomb, triggering a 5.1-magnitude earthquake and propelling the dictatorship on a new collision course with world powers.
The thermonuclear weapon is believed to have detonated into the atmosphere at 10am local time at the Punggye-ri test site in the north-east of the country, with tremors felt many miles away.
Footage was aired on state television that purported to be of the explosion, showing a thick, black mushroom cloud rising high into the air.
In a typically propaganda-heavy statement, the news anchor said the test had been a 'perfect success', elevating the country's 'nuclear might to the next level' and providing it with a weapon to defend against the US and its other enemies.
World leaders lined up to condemn the test as the UN Security Council quickly announced an emergency meeting to discuss its response.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye ordered her military to bolster its combined defense posture with U.S. forces, calling the test a 'grave provocation' and 'an act that threatens our lives and future.'
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said: 'We absolutely cannot allow this.'
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond described the test as a 'provocation' and a 'grave' breach of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
Hammond wrote on Twitter: 'If North Korean H-bomb test reports are true, it is a grave breach of UNSC (UN Security Council) resolutions and a provocation which I condemn without reservation'.
The White House said it could not confirm North Korea's claims, but added the United States would respond appropriately to provocations and defend its allies.
The blast ends weeks of speculation that leader Kim Jong-Un had illegally developed such a weapon, which is lighter yet hundreds of times more powerful than the fission blast generated by nuclear bombs.
There has long been scepticism by Washington and nuclear experts on past North Korean claims about H-bombs.
But a confirmed test would be seen as extremely worrying and lead to a strong push for new, tougher sanctions on North Korea at the United Nations.
In a broadcast five-and-a-half hours after the blast, a state television news reader announced: 'The republic's first hydrogen bomb test has been successfully performed at 10am on January 6, 2016, based on the strategic determination of the Workers' Party.'
Reading a typically propaganda-heavy statement, the anchor added that North Korea 'joined the rank of advanced nuclear states', providing a weapon to defend against the United States - who they claim to have 'numerous and humongous nuclear weapons' - and its other enemies.
The broadcast concluded by saying: 'If there is no invasion on our sovereignty we will not use nuclear weapon. This H-bomb test brings us to a higher level of nuclear power.'
The successful detonation marks a major step in North Korea's nuclear development and is bound to cause considerable anxiety to neighbouring countries.
The country has been under U.N Security Council sanctions since it first tested an atomic device in 2006. It could now face additional measures.
The Security Council will meet later on today to discuss what steps it could take.
Last month, Kim Jong-Un had suggested Pyongyang had already developed a hydrogen bomb - although the claim was greeted with scepticism by international experts.
A hydrogen, or thermonuclear device, uses fusion in a chain reaction that results in a far more powerful explosion than a standard nuclear device.
Like other types of nuclear explosion, the explosion of a hydrogen bomb creates an extremely hot zone near its center. In this zone, because of the high temperature, nearly all of the matter present is vaporised to form a gas at extremely high pressure.
A hydrogen bomb is hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima in 1945.
North Korea had previously hinted at the possession of 'stronger, more powerful' weapons. Today is the first time the existence of such a bomb has been confirmed.
Cho Tae-yong, deputy head of South Korea's National Security Council (NSC), responded to the test by saying: 'Our Government strongly condemns North Korea ignoring repeated warnings from us and the international community and pushing ahead with the fourth nuclear test, which clearly violated the U.N resolutions.'
President Park Geun-Hye convened an emergency meeting of the NSC as soon as the detonation was announced.
'We will take all necessary measures including additional sanctions by the U.N Security Council so that the North will pay the price for the nuclear test,' a statement said.
North Korean nuclear tests worry Washington and others because each new blast is seen as pushing North Korea's scientists and engineers closer to their goal of an arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles that can reach the United States.
Chinese and South Korean officials both speculated that this morning's earthquake was 'man-made' before the North Korean state TV announcement. South Korea's Met Agency considered it 'highly likely' that the 5.1 magnitude earthquake was caused by nuclear testing.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stressed his belief that the testing of any hydrogen bomb is a threat to his nation's safety.
Abe told reporters: 'We absolutely cannot allow this, and condemn it strongly.'
France also condemned the reported test, calling for a 'strong reaction from the international community', President Francois Hollande's office said.
Their statement also called the detonation 'an unacceptable violation of U.N Security Council resolutions'.
We will take all necessary measures including additional sanctions by the U.N Security Council so that the North will pay the price for the nuclear test.
The U.N organisation tasked with monitoring the world for signs of nuclear testing confirmed the detection of 'an unusual event in the Korean Peninsula.'
A statement from Lassina Zerbo, head of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation, read: 'Our International Monitoring System detected an unusual seismic event in the Korean Peninsula at latitude 41.27 longitude 129.10.'
Zerbo added that the detonation of a nuclear weapon would be a breach of the U.N treaty and a grave threat to international peace and security
The US Geological Survey also confirmed that the epicentre of the tremor was in the north east of the country, taking place some 30 miles north west of Kilju city.
Punggye-ri - North Korea's only nuclear test site - is located in a mountainous region in the North Hamgyong Province.
It is alleged to have been the location of nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013.
A 2013 explosion registered a 5.1 magnitude tremor. North Korean officials confirmed that too was a successful nuclear detonation.
According to Channel News Asia, the China Earthquake Network Centre gave the depth of today's quake as zero kilometres, noting it was registered at almost precisely 9.30am Beijing time.
Nuclear bombs are of two types: atomic, which depend on fission (the splitting) of isotopes, or hydrogen - also known as thermonuclear - which depend on fusion, the combining of two lighter atomic nuclei to form a heavier nucleus.
Splitting atoms in materials like uranium or plutonium force a considerably powerful explosion.
But in the case of hydrogen bombs, atoms are fused together to release much vaster quantities of energy.
That fusing requires an extremely high temperature, hence atomic bombs are generally used as triggers for hydrogen bombs.
An H-bomb's initial explosion is the fission reaction, which in turn triggers the secondary explosion, caused by the fusion of hydrogen isotopes tritium and deuterium - two isotopes that naturally repel each other.
They can be combined, however, after the x-rays from the fission reaction weaken their repellent force.
That then triggers an enormous energy release - the basis of a thermonuclear bomb's incredible power.
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