‘Kim Jong-un is unhinged but the responses could end in catastrophe’
RESIDENTS of Hokkaido in northern Japan woke up to sirens wailing shortly after dawn yesterday as citizens were warned to take cover in basements while a missile launched by North Korea flew overhead. The public received the shrill warnings of the country’s J-alert alarm system on mobile phones and radios shortly before 6am, triggering hundreds of worried calls to local authorities for advice on what to do.
Messages broadcast on television told people to take cover in a safe place, preferably a basement or behind sturdy walls. They were also told to stay away from windows to avoid being injured by flying glass. “The J-alert warnings woke me up, but I was pretty certain that the North Koreans would not be aiming at the little village where I live,” said Chris Pickering, general manager of Hokkaido Tourism Management.
Mr Pickering, who is originally from York, said his next thought was about the possible response from Donald Trump or Shinzo Abe. “I think everyone is on the same page about Kim Jong-un; he’s unhinged”, Mr Pickering told The Daily Telegraph. “But the responses, I feel, are more likely to end in some kind of catastrophe.”
By the time the majority of people had seen the warnings, the danger was long past.
The government subsequently announced that the missile was launched at 5.57am local time but had only been in Japanese airspace for a little over two minutes before falling into the Pacific Ocean off the east coast of Hokkaido.
Makoto Watanabe, an associate professor of communications and media at Hokkaido Bunkyo University, said most of his friends and colleagues had not been overly worried over the missile launch as the relatively rural island is unlikely to be a target. “I do not think that North Korea would ever try to hit a target on land in Japan because that would be a step too far, even by their standards,” he said.
“Perhaps the biggest threat comes from one of these missiles failing in flight and then coming down on Japan. It is almost ironic that Japan is going to be safer when North Korea’s missile technology gets better.”