An earthquake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale was detected around North Korea’s nuclear test site on Sunday, the Seoul military said indicating that Pyongyang has conducted its sixth nuclear test. In brief remarks after a White House meeting with Trump and other national security officials, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters that America does not seek the “total annihilation” of North Korea, but then added somberly, “We have many options to do so.”

Mattis said the U.S. will answer any threat from the North with a “massive military response — a response both effective and overwhelming.”

Mattis also said the international community is unified in demanding the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and that Kim should know Washington’s commitment to Japan and South Korea is unshakeable. Seoul’s defense ministry said the respective chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff — General Jeong Kyeong-Doo and General Joseph Dunford — had “agreed to prepare a South Korea-US military counteraction and to put it into action at the earliest date.”

South Korean experts said the tremor near the North’s main test site was five to six times stronger than that from a 10-kiloton test a year ago. But US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday his department was preparing potent new measures that would “cut off North Korea economically.”

“I’m going to draft a sanctions package and send it to the president for his strong consideration that anybody that wants to do trade or business with them will be prevented from doing trade or business with us,” Mnuchin said on “Fox News Sunday.”

While the United States has virtually no trade with the North, the burden of sanctions such as Mnuchin described would fall heavily on China, which buys about 90 percent of North Korean exports.
A 6.3 magnitude earthquake is detected near the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site in Kilju County, North Korea, after North Korea tests its sixth and most powerful nuclear weapon to date. North Korean state media claims the country tested a hydrogen bomb that can be fitted on an ICBM.