North Korea fired an unidentified missile eastwards over Japan on Friday, Seoul and Tokyo said.
The launch, from near Pyongyang, came after the United Nations Security Council imposed an eighth set of sanctions on the country over its banned missile and nuclear programs.
That was in response to its sixth nuclear test — by far its largest yet — earlier this month, which Pyongyang said was a hydrogen bomb small enough to fit onto a missile.
The North has raised tensions in the region with its rapid progress in weapons technology under leader Kim Jong-Un, who is closely associated with the program and regularly pictured by state media overseeing launches and visiting facilities.
Its last missile launch, a Hwasong-12 intermediate range missile just over two weeks ago, also overflew Japan — its first to do so for years — sparking emergency sirens and text alerts, before coming down in the Pacific Ocean
Friday’s missile flew over Hokkaido in northern Japan “at around 07:06 am (2206 GMT) towards the Pacific Ocean”, Japan’s J-Alert system said, with reports saying it came down around 2,000 kilometers east of Hokkaido.
Seoul’s defense ministry said it probably travelled around 3,700 kilometers and reached a maximum altitude of 770 kilometers — both higher and further than the previous device.
It was fired from a similar location near the capital’s airport, it added.
Update 1: According to Fox News, the U.S. has now confirmed the latest North Korean missile launch.
- U.S. OFFICIAL CONFIRMS #NORTHKOREA FIRED BALLISTIC MISSILE: FOX NEWS
- WHITE HOUSE SAYS TRUMP BRIEFED ON N.KOREA MISSILE: YONHAP NEWS
All the diplomatic posturing, the jawboning, the UN sanctions, and threats over the past three weeks has achieved absolutely nothing because as Yonhap and NHK report, North Korea has just launched an "unidentified" missile eastward from the capital Pyongyang.
A live feed from NHK in English is available after clicking on the image below:
According to Yonhap, "North Korea fired an unidentified missile eastward from the vicinity of Pyongyang this morning," the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. It added that South Korea and the United States are analyzing additional information. On August 29, the North lobbed a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile over the island nation in a similar provocation .
Following the launch Japan has issued a missile alert to mobile phones and on national television, with the government advising people outside to take shelter immediately.
Worse, it appears that the missile has once again flown over Japan:
- NORTH KOREA MISSILE PASSES OVER JAPAN, GOVT SAYS
- N.KOREA MISSILE PASSES OVER JAPAN'S HOKKAIDO, GOVT SAYS
As NHK further adds, the missile which was launched at 6:57am local time, passed over Hokkaido at 7:06am local time, and came down in the Pacific Ocean, some 2,000 KM east of Japan's Erimo Misaki.
The launch marks the North's first provocation following the UNSC sanctions for which the communist country has warned of retaliation.
The missile flew a total of 3,700 kilometers and reached an altitude of 770km, according to Yonhap, which puts the splash down somewhere along the red line below.
Japan's cabinet minister Suga said that the missile situation is similar to that on August 29, NHK adds, and that Japan will take appropriate response in contact with the US and South Korea. NHK adds that Japan did not attempt to shoot down the missile though the South Korean military has confirmed it fired a test missile into the sea as part of training drill.
The South's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae immediately convened a National Security Council meeting, as the country's troops conducted a ballistic missile training in the East Sea in response to the North's latest provocation.
And now we await whether the US will finally escalate militarily, as Trump has threatened on countless occasions, or once again use even harsher, and more powerless, language hoping for a different outcome.
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