N. Korean explosion meant to build dam, says official

SEOUL—A huge explosion in North Korea last week was a deliberate blast to pave the way for a hydroelectric dam, the BBC quoted the North’s foreign minister as telling a visiting British official on Monday.

“It was no nuclear explosion or an accident. It was a deliberate controlled detonation to demolish a mountain in the far north of the country,” a BBC correspondent in Pyongyang with British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell quoted North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun as saying.