May 31. (EUROPE PRESS) –
North Korea launched a missile on Wednesday, days after the North Korean authorities revealed their plan to launch a military reconnaissance satellite, which has activated evacuation alerts for a few minutes in the South Korean capital, Seoul, and the prefecture. Okinawa, the northernmost island in the Japanese archipelago.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff has reported that Pyongyang has launched what it claims to be a “space launch vehicle” without giving further details that it would have passed over the island of Baengnyeong, on the border between North and South Korea.
After that, the city of Seoul has sent an alert to its residents to prepare for a possible evacuation, reports the South Korean agency Yonhap.
The South Korean Presidency has subsequently called a security meeting to discuss the launch of the North Korean missile, noting that “a meeting will be held soon to verify the security situation.”
For its part, the Japanese government issued an alert to the citizens of the Okinawa prefecture at around 06:30 a.m. (local time), reports the NHK chain.
“It seems that a missile was launched from North Korea in the direction of the Okinawa prefecture. Evacuate inside or underground,” said the statement, which minutes later — at 7:04 a.m. — the authorities issued a second message in which they indicated that “it is believed that the missiles will not reach our country before: we will cancel the call to evacuate.”
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has ordered relevant ministries and agencies to collect information on the missile launch.
