South Korea came under heavy fire Monday from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) official news agency for alleging that a recent explosion in north DPRK was a nuclear test.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the explosion on Thursday was not a nuclear test as South Korea had claimed.

A Foreign Ministry official of the DPRK said Monday that the explosion last Thursday in the country's northern region was part of a power plant project.

The official told Xinhua that Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun had told visiting British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell that the blast was conducted to demolish a mountain for the project.

The BBC reported Monday that Rammell had said he and other foreign diplomats had been invited by the DPRK to visit the site of the explosion.

According to the KCNA, the South Korean government claimed the explosion in Kim Hyong Jik County, in Ryanggang Province of the DPRK, was presumed to be a nuclear test or a forest fire. South Korea then asserted the explosion may have occurred in an area along the Military Demarcation Line.

"The story about the explosion is nothing but sheer fabrication intended to divert elsewhere world public attention focused on the nuclear-related issue of South Korea for which they are now finding themselves in a dire fix," the KCNA said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 14, 2004)