Japan issued a warning to citizens of two northern prefectures to seek safe haven on Tuesday morning, Oct. 4, after North Korea fired a ballistic missile at the country.
In the images from Aomori Prefecture, a siren and an alert can be heard. On Tuesday morning, the government issued a J (National Instant Alert System) alert for Hokkaido and Aomori prefectures, as well as Tokyo.
The Japanese government said the missile flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone at 7:29 a. m.
The local government said no damage was reported in the city of Aomori on Tuesday morning, but suggested citizens report any suspicious items. Credit: @jgc_2020 through Storyful
SEOUL/TOKYO, Oct 4 (Reuters) – North Korea, which possesses nuclear weapons, fired a ballistic missile at Japan on Tuesday for the first time in five years, prompting citizens to take refuge and suspend rail operations in northern Japan.
The Japanese government warned citizens to take an awning as the missile gave the impression of having flown over and beyond their territory before falling into the Pacific Ocean. It said it did not use any defensive measures to destroy the missile, which was the first to fly over or overtake North Korea’s Japan since 2017.
“North Korea’s series of actions, its repeated ballistic missile launches, threaten the peace and security of Japan, the region and the foreign community, and pose a serious challenge to the entire foreign community, Japan,” said Hirokazu, spokesman for the Japanese. government. Matsuno told a news conference.
He said the missile traveled 4,600 kilometers (2,850 miles) at an altitude of 1,000 km.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it was an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) introduced from North Korea’s Jagang province. North Korea has used the province to launch several recent tests, adding several missiles it has described as “hypersonic. “”
The check prompted East Japan Railway Co to suspend rail operations in the northern regions, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported. Matsuno said there were no reports of damage to planes or ships via the missile.
REAL-WORLD TEST
Early flight highlights announced by South Korea and Japan suggest the missile could have been the Hwasong-12 IRBM, which North Korea unveiled in 2017 as part of its threatened plan to attack Guam, said Kim Dong-yup, a former South Korean military officer. Korean military officer who now teaches at Kyungnam University.
The Hong-12 used in the 2017 tests that flew over Japan, and Kim noted that it also tested from Jagang province in January.
North Korea’s wave of missile tests is helping to make its weapons more operational, introducing new functions and sending a message that developing its weapons is a sovereign right that is accepted around the world, analysts said.
North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons systems are banned through United Nations Security Council resolutions, which have imposed sanctions on the country.
Many of North Korea’s ballistic missile tests are conducted on an “elevated trajectory,” which sends them to the top of the area but takes them to a point of impact not far from the launch site, avoiding overflights by their neighbors.
North Korean scientists firing over or beyond Japan to test missiles under more realistic conditions, said Ankit Panda of the U. S. -based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Compared to the same much higher previous trajectory, this allows them to disclose a long-range re-entry vehicle to warm up a lot and atmospheric reentry pressures that are more representative of the situations they would experience in the real world,” he said.
“Politically, it’s complicated: the missile flies largely out of the environment when it’s over Japan, but it’s very painful for the Japanese public to receive warnings of an approaching North Korean missile.
POLITICAL FALSIFICATION
The latest launch is Pyongyang’s fifth in 10 days, amid efforts by the U. S. military and South Korea, which conducted trilateral anti-submarine training last week with Japanese naval forces.
South Korea on Saturday held its own display of complex weapons to mark Armed Forces Day, various rocket launchers, ballistic missiles, major war tanks, drones and F-35 fighters.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol called it “reckless” and said it would draw a decisive reaction from his country’s armed forces, allies and foreign community.
North Korea has finalized arrangements for a nuclear test, possibly between the Chinese Communist Party Congress this month and the U. S. midterm elections in November, South Korean lawmakers said last week.
“So I guess the incredibly delicate era of the run-up to Xi Jinping’s 20th Party Congress was not considered delicate enough in Pyongyang to save it or at least sustain this,” John Delury of Seoul’s Yonsei University said of Tuesday’s missile launch in a message. . on Twitter.
Speaking in Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called North Korea’s moves “barbaric” and said the government would continue to gather and analyze information.
The launch on Japan is “unfortunate” and “not a productive path,” Daniel Kritenbrink, the most sensible U. S. diplomat for East Asia, said at an online event hosted by the Institute for Korean-American Studies.
“We are open to international relations with North Korea (but) it takes two to tango,” he said. “We will leave this door open, but we will respond decisively to this developing threat. “(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith in Seoul, and Chang-Ran Kim and Kantaro Komiya in Tokyo; writing by Josh Smith; editing by Leslie Adler, Chris Reese, Lincoln Feast and Gerry Doyle)
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