TOKYO/SEOUL: North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles on Thursday (Oct 3), including a possible failed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that triggered an alert for residents in parts of central and northern Japan to seek shelter.
Despite an initial government warning that a missile had overflown Japan, Tokyo later said that was incorrect.
Officials in South Korea and Japan said the missile may have been an ICBM, which are North Korea's longest-range weapons, and are designed to carry a nuclear warhead to the other side of the planet.
South Korean officials believe the ICBM failed in flight, Yonhap news agency reported, without elaborating. A spokesman for South Korea's ministry of defence declined to confirm the possible failure.
Japanese Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada said the government had lost track of the missile over the Sea of Japan, prompting it to correct its announcement that it had flown over Japan.
Retired Vice Admiral and former Japan Maritime Self Defense Force fleet commander Yoji Koda said that the loss of radar tracking on the projectile pointed to a failed launch.
"It means at some point in the flight path there was some problem for the missile and it actually came apart," he said.
Although the warhead came down in the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan debris, which would have been travelling at high speed, it may still have passed over Japan, Koda added.
North Korea has had several failed ICBM tests this year, according to South Korean and US officials.
The United States condemned North Korea's ICBM launch, State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement. "This launch is a clear violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions," he said.
It also demonstrates the threat from North Korea's unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes, Price added.
President Joe Biden and his national security team are "assessing the situation", National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement, which said the United States would take "all necessary measures" to ensure security.
North Korea also launched at least two short-range missiles.
The launch came a day after North Korea fired at least 23 missiles, the most in a single day, including one that landed off South Korea's coast for the first time.
South Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong and US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman strongly condemned North Korea's series of missile launches as "deplorable, immoral" during a phone call on Thursday, Seoul's foreign ministry said.
After the first launch on Thursday, residents of Miyagi, Yamagata and Niigata prefectures in Japan were warned to seek shelter indoors, according to the J-Alert Emergency Broadcasting System.
"We detected a launch that showed the potential to fly over Japan and therefore triggered the J Alert, but after checking the flight we confirmed that it had not passed over Japan," Hamada told reporters.
The first missile flew to an altitude of about 2,000km and a range of 750km, he said. Such a flight pattern is called a "lofted trajectory", in which a missile is fired high into space to avoid flying over neighbouring countries.
In brief comments to reporters a few minutes later, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said, "North Korea's repeated missile launches are an outrage and absolutely cannot be forgiven."
About half an hour after the launch was first reported, Japan's Coast Guard said the missile had fallen.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMicmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vYXNpYS9ub3J0aC1rb3JlYS1maXJlcy1iYWxsaXN0aWMtbWlzc2lsZS1qYXBhbi10ZXJyaXRvcnktcmVzaWRlbnRzLXNoZWx0ZXItMzAzOTc4NtIBAA?oc=5
2022-11-02 23:53:00Z
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