North Korea launched a medium-range ballistic missile early Thursday that flew over the territory of Japan, triggering air alerts in several prefectures in the north of the island of Honshu, according to Japanese authorities.
The Japanese Defense Ministry has revealed that North Korea launched the missile at around 7.42 local time (23.42 Spanish peninsular time), which fell into the Pacific Ocean, according to NHK.
Following the launch, the government sent instant alerts to citizens in the prefectures of Miyagi, Yamagata and Niigata, all in the north of Honshu, the main island of the Japanese archipelago.
This is the second projectile fired by Pyongyang to cross over Japanese territory in less than a month, when last October 4 it launched a ballistic missile that fell into the Pacific Ocean. North Korea had not carried out missile launches over the Japanese archipelago since 2017.
The launch comes a day after North Korea launched nearly twenty missiles into the Sea of Japan, one of which flew over the maritime demarcation line between the two Koreas for the first time since the Korean War, setting off anti-aircraft sirens on one of the South Korean islands.
The offensive by Pyongyang further escalates tensions in the region, after North Korea has in recent weeks launched dozens of ballistic missiles in tests banned by UN Security Council resolutions, in response to US-North Korean military maneuvers which it considers an invasion rehearsal.
Washington, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have shared their evidence that North Korea is «likely» to conduct a nuclear missile test, its first since 2017.
