Sunday, April 25, 2010

Torpedo Blast Assumed To Be At Fault

South Korea's defense minister, Kim Tae-young, said investigators are ruling that a non-contact torpedo blast was likely the cause of the sunken warship. Officials and investigators are saying that a bubble jet caused by a nearby-detonated torpedo would be enough to send a shockwave through the hull, ripping it apart.



This is a bit confusing for anyone who hasn't watched the South Korea news lately. Fortunately for me, my girlfriend was at my house last night, and put the news on. It also provided some good comedy. More on that in a bit.

The minister isn't coming right out and blaming the North. That's a pretty smart move considering how high tensions are right now. Even though the North is a terribly poor nation, their military is quite capable.

The news channel showed computer-generated graphics of how officials theorize the ship sank. It showed a picture of a torpedo coming close to the ship, and detonating somewhere below it.

The blast creates a water jet that shoots up through the water and into the air. The power of this jet, officials think, is what made the ship go down.

But just to make sure any English-speaking person would think they're dummies, they wrote their Korean "버블 제트 (bubble jet)" as "bubble zet." Hahaha. They wrote it with a 'z.' Jeong Mi didn't get this at first, but saw the humor as I explained there's no such thing as a "bubble zet." As a major news organiztion and broadcaster in South Korea, one would assumed that SBS could hire someone to check that out before putting it on TV.

No comments: