Journey to North Korea's volcano: British scientists visit Mount Paektu
A thousand years ago, it was responsible for one of the largest volcanic eruptions in human history. It left a four-kilometre-wide hole in the east-Asian landscape and a thick blanket of ash over the Korean peninsula and beyond. Until a couple of decades ago, only a handful of people knew it even existed.
Mount Paektu volcano straddles the boundary between two of the world's most secretive states - China and North Korea. It's showing signs of life, and its hosts are worried. So much so that, a few years ago North Korea, normally so closed to the outside world, made a call for international help.
"It was all a bit serendipitous", explains seismologist and Natural Environment Research Council (Nerc) fellow Dr James Hammond, who received the call through a complex chain of indirect contacts. "We got about two weeks' notice before we had to be out there. I was a little bit nervous, as I would be going anywhere, but it seemed like a great opportunity to work somewhere that is fascinating both from a geological perspective and culturally."
The Imperial College London researcher and his colleague, Professor Clive Oppenheimer of the University of Cambridge, had worked together in challenging conditions before, on volcanoes in Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Philippines.
"It required a lot of planning; more planning than I've ever done for a trip before," says Hammond. "A lot of trust had to be built up in advance and communication was hard at times – I once had to go out to Pyongyang to discuss something because talking over the internet or phone is difficult."
"The international sanctions were probably the biggest challenge. We were taking very specialist and sensitive equipment, and we had to get it all approved by both the UK and US authorities, which eventually delayed the project by a year. But there was a strong will on both sides and, ultimately, that's what made the project possible."
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