The BBC's Lucy Williamson says North Korea's move could be "deeply destabilising"
North Korea has carried out a third nuclear test in defiance of United Nations warnings.
The move prompted criticism from its sole major ally, China, and condemnation around the world.
The North Korean news agency said the underground test used a smaller, lighter nuclear device with greater explosive force than before.
Observers say that if correct, it could take Pyongyang closer to building a warhead small enough to arm a missile.
The UN Security Council will meet at 14:00 GMT to discuss the test and its ramifications, diplomats say.
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All we know at the moment about the North Korean test is gleaned from seismic data: the event was magnitude 4.9, significantly larger than the 2006 and 2009 tests.
Learning more than that will be difficult. Monitoring stations in the region can pick up radioactive elements and particles that may - or may not - have been released from the test site; that would indicate whether the device was based on plutonium, as earlier tests, or the more worrisome uranium.
But that could take days, and may be frustrated by weather conditions; it will be virtually impossible to determine if the device was "miniaturised", as North Korea claims.
North Korea had previously conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. It announced last month that it would conduct a third as a response to UN sanctions that were expanded after a December rocket launch, a move condemned by the UN as a banned test of missile technology.
Activity had been observed at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site for several months.
Seismic activity was then detected by monitoring agencies from several nations at 11:57 (02:57 GMT) on Tuesday morning. A shallow earthquake with a magnitude of 4.9 was recorded, the US Geological Survey said.
Confirmation of the test came three hours later in a statement from state-run KCNA news agency.
"It was confirmed that the nuclear test, that was carried out at a high level in a safe and perfect manner using a miniaturised and lighter nuclear device with greater explosive force than previously, did not pose any negative impact on the surrounding ecological environment," it said.
North Korea said the nuclear test - which comes on the eve of US President Barack Obama's State of the Union address - was to "to protect our national security and sovereignty against the reckless hostility of the United States".
It is the first such test under new leader Kim Jong-un, who took over the leadership after his father Kim Jong-il died in December 2011.
'Provocative'UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the test as a "clear and grave violation" of UN resolutions and a "deeply destabilising" provocation.
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End Quote Shinzo Abe Japanese prime ministerIt is a grave threat to our nation's safety and cannot be tolerated as it will significantly damage international society's peace and safety?
Mr Obama said the test was a "highly provocative act", and called for "swift" and "credible" international action in response.
China expressed "firm opposition" to its ally's test.
Both South Korea and Japan convened emergency meetings of their national security teams.
"This is an unacceptable threat to the security of the Korean peninsula and north-east Asia, and a challenge to the whole international community," South Korea's presidential national security adviser Chun Young-woo said.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said: "It is a grave threat to our nation's safety and cannot be tolerated as it will significantly damage international society's peace and safety."
Britain called for a "robust response" from the UN Security Council.
French President Francois Hollande condemned the test and said Paris would back firm action by the UN Security Council.
But the BBC's Lucy Williamson, in Seoul, says the trouble, as ever, is what the international community can do in response without triggering an even bigger crisis - North Korea is already tied up in layers of sanctions which do not seem to have have any impact.
She adds that some in Washington have talked of maybe targeting North Korean financial interests, but the only real pressure is seen to lie with China. By defying the UN and launching its nuclear test now, our correspondent says, Pyongyang is giving the new leadership in Beijing a very public test of its own.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21421841#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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