NORTH Korea has enough material to build 45 nukes capable of wiping Japan off the map, says a top scientist who visited the rogue state.

Dr Siegfried Hecker headed to Kim Jong-un’s Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center to assess its controversial plutonium programme.

The renowned weapons expert – a professor at Stanford University – believes North Korea could now “reach most of Japan with nuclear-tipped missiles”.

However, he believes Kim's terrifying nuclear arsenal still needs more testing to make it "militarily useful."

And he told Express.co.uk he does not believe the secretive kingdom has the ability to the target the US yet but chillingly added "they continue to work in that direction.”

He said: "My best estimate of North Korea’s nuclear program today is that it possesses sufficient fissile materials to produce approximately 45 nuclear weapons.

“The North has successfully conducted a sufficient number of short and medium-range rocket tests, when combined with the nuclear test history, makes it possible to reach all of South Korea and most of Japan with nuclear-tipped missiles."

North Korea has long boasted its "game-changing" Hwasong-15 Doomsday nuke CAN flatten cities anywhere in the US.

And analysts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies fear the rocket can deliver a 1,000-kilogram payload an estimated 8,000 miles.

Kim's state media has described it as a “new-type of ICBM capable of carrying super-heavy nuclear warhead and attacking the whole mainland of the US”.

However, many believe the 16-metre weapon has not been properly tested and could fail if called into action.

Last month, we reported how North Korea was believed to be building nuclear subs capable of wiping out enemy targets anywhere on the planet.

Regional security experts say the rogue state is constructing two deadly underwater war machines – including one which can fire long-range nukes.

And just three weeks ago it was feared to be building new nuclear weapons after fresh activity was detected at a secret uranium enrichment facility.

The International Atomic Energy Agency watchdog confirmed that the Kangson nuclear site near the capital Pyongyang is currently active.

Kim has refused to acknowledge the existence of the secret facility – which prompted the collapse of peace talks with Donald Trump last year.

Intelligence agencies have been studying it since 2007 and believe it may have been enriching weapons-grade uranium since 2003.

Now the IAEA has detected fresh activity there, suggesting the regime is stockpiling yet more warheads despite promising to stop.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the IAEA, said: “We are trying to finetune the analysis on Kangson.

“In the beginning we were a bit more prudent, but with further analysis we can see that this is a relevant place where activity is taking place.”

He added inspectors will seek to visit the site when they are able to return to North Korea.

Dr SHecker served as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, home of the primary nuclear weapons research facility in the US, from 1986 to 1997.

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