Japan issued an emergency alert on Thursday to residents of its northernmost island, Hokkaido, urging them to “evacuate immediately” or take shelter from a potential bombing in their respective locations in response to a missile launch from North Korea.
The governments of Japan and South Korea later confirmed a missile launch out of communist North Korea and said evidence suggested that the missile in question was a new ballistic model.
According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the leaders of the nation’s military, the projectile in question was “an intermediate- or longer-range ballistic missile.” It flew out of the greater Pyongyang area in the early morning hours local time and flew about 620 miles out of North Korea into the East Sea/Sea of Japan. The South Korean news service Yonhap, citing an anonymous South Korean official, said the government believes the missile may be a new model.
Japanese authorities detected the missile immediately after its launch, the Defense Ministry clarified on Thursday, but the missile abruptly disappeared from the country’s radar, prompting the emergency alert in the event that it landed on Hokkaido. Locals were told to evacuate or take shelter for about 20 minutes before the government rescinded the alert.
Japanese Defense Minister Hamada Yasukazu later confirmed that the missile did not land in Japanese waters, Japan’s Kyodo News reported.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Matsuno Hirokazu denounced the missile launch as an “outrage” on Thursday and confirmed that Tokyo had lodged a formal complaint against North Korea with its envoy.
“A series of actions by North Korea, including the repeated launches of ballistic missiles, threaten the peace and safety of our country and region as well as those of international society. They are totally unacceptable,” Matsuno said.
“Considering the role of the J-Alert system, which is to quickly inform the public of danger, we believe the decision to issue the alert was appropriate,” Matsuno said.
Matsuno also defended the alert to Hokkaid despite the missile ultimately not landing anywhere near residents due to the fact that Japan lost track of the missile and did not have sufficient knowledge at the time. He said the alert was issued to guarantee the safety of the island.
“In light of the role of the J-Alert system, which is to promptly inform the public of the danger of falling objects such as missiles, we issued the alert from the viewpoint of placing the highest priority on the safety of the people of Japan,” he said.
Japan’s NHK News reported significant distress in Sapporo, Hokkaido’s regional capital, as people flooded subway stations to get below ground.
現在、ミサイルの警報が流れています。 pic.twitter.com/lvil1UY02H
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“One woman said she was inside a building when the alarm sounded. She said she rushed to evacuate after she was advised to head underground,” NHK detailed. “She said the words ‘not again’ went through her mind.”
“Another woman, who was driving when the alarm sounded, said she felt uneasy because she couldn’t take cover immediately. She added that North Korea has repeatedly launched missiles. She said she is worried that it could happen again at any time,” the outlet added.
The J-Alert system, which warns of incoming missiles or other disasters, has been the subject of some criticism in the country for needlessly alarming people. In October, for example, the government sent a J-Alert to the wrong part of the country, panicking people in southern Japan instead of properly notifying the north.
“In November, a J-Alert message wrongly said a North Korean missile flew past Japanese territory toward the Pacific Ocean when it actually didn’t,” the Asahi Shimbun newspaper recalled on Thursday.
October’s alert was in response to the first North Korean missile shot over Japan since 2017, believed to have been an intermediate-range ballistic missile of the known “Hwasong-12” model.
“North Korea’s recent series of actions, including its persistent and escalating launches, threaten the peace and security of the region and the globe, and are a serious challenge to the entire international community, including our own country,” the defense minister, Hamada, said at the time.
Authorities in multiple countries have documented 16 suspected ballistic missile launches out of North Korea in 2023 so far.
The latest appeared to be in anticipation of the holiest day in the communist Kim cult religion, the “Day of the Sun,” marking the birthday of North Korean founder Kim Il-sung.
Following three years of strict coronavirus protocols, North Korea appears to be preparing for lavish festivities in the capital to honor the elder Kim. Reports from citizens on the ground in the capital indicate the communist government is forcing residents to flood the streets with flowers, though the country is suffering from flower shortages.
“They are growing as many fresh flowers as possible to decorate the center of the town and supplement them with paper flowers if they don’t have enough,” an anonymous source told Radio Free Asia.
Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North Korean communist regime, detailed on Tuesday a Party meeting led by dictator Kim Jong-un calling for an expansion of the nation’s illegal nuclear weapons program.
“The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un stressed the need to expand the DPRK’s [North Korea’s] war deterrence,” Rodong Sinmun reported, using the preferred government euphemism for nuclear weapons, “being strengthened with increasing speed on a more practical and offensive and to effectively apply it as a measure for more strict control and management of the ever-worsening security on the Korean peninsula.”
“The enlarged meeting clearly understood the serious present security situation in the Korean Peninsula that the aggressive military policy and actions of the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet traitors are emerging as a threatening entity,” the newspaper claimed, “and discussed important military issues arising in making the country’s defence capacity and war preparations more perfect.”
Kim Jong-un began the year with a call for his country to generate an “exponential increase of [its] nuclear arsenal.”
“Stressing the importance of bolstering the nuclear force, the report made clear that our nuclear force considers it as the first mission to deter war and safeguard peace and stability,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said at the time, “and, however, if it fails to deter, it will carry out the second mission, which will not be for defense.”
A report published this month by the North Korea monitor site 38 North revealed that satellite images showed a “high level” of activity at the country’s Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, including signs of potentially increasing uranium enrichment.
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