The missile launched today by North Korea in its latest weapons test flew over the north of the Japanese archipelago, as announced by the Japanese authorities, who activated the alert in that area due to the trajectory of the projectile.
The missile was fired around 7:23 a.m. local time on Tuesday (7:23 p.m. in Chile) into the Sea of Japan, according to the South Korean Army, while the Japanese government said it fell at an unspecified point in the sea. , after activating the civil alert in the prefectures of Hokkaido and Aomori, the northernmost of the archipelago.
“North Korea today launched a missile to the east. This ballistic missile passed over the Tohoku region (northern Japan), and we consider that it has fallen in waters outside the exclusive economic zone of Japan at about 7:44 a.m. (19:44 on Monday in Chile), the spokesman for the Japanese Executive, Hirokazu Matsuno, said at a press conference.
The spokesman also pointed out that there is no evidence of damage to aircraft or boats due to the impact of the missile.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) detailed, for its part, that it was presumably a an “intermediate-range ballistic missile” launched from Jagang province, located in the north of the neighboring country and bordering China, in a statement.
This is the first time that Japan has activated its civil missile trajectory warning system since September 15, 2017, when another North Korean projectile flew over Hokkaido.
The new North Korean launch comes after Tokyo, Washington and Seoul last week carried out joint drills in the Sea of Japan to counter North Korean weapons developments of SLBMs (submersible-fired ballistic missiles). in which the American aircraft carrier USS “Ronald Reagan” participated.
North Korea has made four more rounds of missile launches since September 25, all of them using short-range ballistic projectiles, making today’s test the longest range of its latest series of tests.