The first nuclear test that North Korea conducted, in 2006, resulted in a tremor equivalent to an earthquake with a magnitude of 3.6. A second test, in 2009, is estimated at as much as 6 kilotons and led to a tremor with a magnitude of 4.4.
Shin Young-soo, a member of the South Korean parliament's Construction and Transportation Committee, has agreed with Yoon's warnings and claimed that another test will inevitably impact the volcano and could even trigger a major eruption . Shin has also previously claimed that magma flows have been detected close to Punggye-ri.
Mount Paektu erupts two or three times a century, although the last one was as far back as 1925.
The mountain, which stands slightly over 9,000 feet high, is considered the place of the ancestral origin of the Korean people but has been largely co-opted by the regime as a symbol of the ruling Kim family.
The densely forested flanks of the mountain were home to guerrilla groups fighting against the Japanese occupation in the early decades of the last century.
According to North Korean history books, Kim Il-sung organised resistance groups from camps on the mountain and his son, Kim Jong-il, was born in a hut that has been preserved to this day. Records outside of North Korea indicate that Kim was actually born in a refugee camp in the former Soviet Union.
February 16 marks the anniversary of the birth of Kim Jong-il known as the Day of the Shining Star and North Korean media have reported that "study tours" of the Mount Paekdu Secret Camp are under way.
Service personnel, schoolchildren and bureaucrats are required to make oaths to the regime after completing the trek to the camp, which was "restored to its original state" and opened to the public in 1987, according to the Korea Central News Agency.
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