North Korea’s underground nuclear test site has turned the surrounding area to wasteland and caused defects among newborn babies, defectors have reported.

About 80 per cent of trees that are planted die at Punggye-ri and underground wells have also run dry, according to 21 defectors who used to live in Kilju county, the location of the site.

“I heard from a relative in Kilju that deformed babies were born in hospitals there,” one defector claimed, according to the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. He added that locals were worried about radioactive contamination.

“I spoke on the phone with family members I left behind there and they told me that all of the underground wells dried up after the sixth nuclear test,” said another, referring to the regime’s most recent test in September.

Defectors, including one person who claimed to have lived through two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, testified that local people were not warned in advance.