Japan’s nuke raid drill over North Korea attack fears
Villagers prepare for missile strike Kim Jong-un: We’ll defy sanctions
JAPAN has held air raid drills for the first time since the Second World War, amid fears of a strike by North Korea.
Villagers on Japan’s north west coast are rehearsing for a nuclear attack following Kim Jong-un’s latest ballistic missile tests.
All 14 tests carried out so far this year have been fired towards the coast of Japan. In footage shown by the BBC yesterday, Japanese children ran indoors as sirens wailed in villages, while others sheltered behind walls or in ditches.
Warnings were announced over loudspeakers, stating: “A missile has been launched and is heading in this direction.
“Take cover in a concrete building.”
It comes after the United Nations agreed its toughest-ever sanctions against Pyongyang at the weekend.
Under pressure from the US China and Russia backed penalties that will cost North Korea around $1billion, or £770million.
The unanimous support at the UN is seen as the first big diplomatic win for US President Donald Trump, following years of China and Russia refusing to co-operate.
Mr Trump tweeted yesterday: “Very happy with United Nations vote on North Korea sanctions.”
In a joint statement, the US, Australia and Japan have urged the international community to pressure the rogue state to abandon its “threatening and provocative path”.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told a summit in the Philippine capital, Manila, yesterday that America could restart talks with Jong-un if he halts his missile tests.
Mr Tillerson said: “The best signal that North Korea could give us that they’re prepared to talk would be to stop these missile launches. We’ve not had any extended period of time where they have not taken some type of provocative action by launching ballistic missiles.
“That would be the first and strongest signal they could send.”
But a defiant North Korea hit back yesterday, with threats of “thousandfold” revenge on the US. It called the sanctions a “violent violation of our sovereignty”.
The regime said: “We will not put our self-defensive nuclear deterrent on the negotiating table. We will never take a single step back from strengthening our nuclear might.”
Pyongyang accused America of “becoming more and more pernicious”, and said the US was “trying to drag the situation of the Korean peninsula back to nuclear battles”.
It said America’s actions would only “hasten self-destruction” and warned its military “will not hesitate to use any last resort”.