North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is “begging for war” with his latest and most powerful nuclear bomb test, the US envoy to the United Nations has said.
Nikki Haley told an emergency meeting of the Security Council in New York that America did not want a war but its patience was “not unlimited”.
The US will table a new UN resolution shortly to toughen sanctions, reports the BBC.
China, the North's main ally, has called for a return to negotiations and Switzerland has offered to mediate.
Meanwhile South Korea's navy carried out live-fire naval drills on Tuesday, warning that if the North provoked them "we will immediately hit back and bury them at sea", reported Yonhap news agency.
It comes a day after the South's military simulated a missile attack on the North's nuclear test site.
Reports suggest the North is preparing new test missile launches.
On Sunday, it tested a bomb underground, which was thought to have a power range from 50 kilotonnes to 120 kilotonnes. A 50kt device would be about three times the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.
It was North Korea's sixth nuclear test to date. The US Geological Survey recorded a resulting tremor at 6.3 magnitude.
Kim Jong-un was pictured on camera being shown what state media said was a new type of hydrogen bomb.
South Korea said it was now presumed that the North had reduced its nuclear warhead in size to below 500kg, and would be able to attach one to an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
BDST: 1150 HRS, SEP 5, 2017
AP
