Satellite images show North Korean mountain after nuclear test that could collapse and unleash an environmental disaster

North Korea detonated a hydrogen bomb that Japan estimates had ten times the explosive power of the bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima on Sunday, and now satellite imagery shows how it devastated a mountain which scientists say could be on the verge of collapse.

The estimated 160 kiloton explosion deep under the Punggye-ri mountain in North Korea visibly shook and shifted the earth.

"We call it 'taking the roof off,'" Wen Lianxing, the lead geophysicist at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, told the South China Morning Post. "If the mountain collapses and the hole is exposed, it will let out many bad things."

Nuclear detonations release radioactive material that can stay in the environment for decades. It can cause cancer spread far and wide as what's known as fallout. 

In the pictures below, see how the mountain looked before, and after the massive nuclear blast in satellite images taken by Planet Labs and provided by 38 North, a website for informed analysis of North Korea. 

NOW WATCH: Meet the Su-30SM - Russia's answer to the F-15E Strike Eagle