North Korea fires missile over Japan

Tokyo, Seoul react angrily after 2nd launch in less than 3 weeks

SEOUL — North Korea fired another missile over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido this morning, a day after Pyongyang threatened that the four main Japanese islands “should be sunken into the sea” by its nuclear bomb.

This was the second time in less than three weeks that North Korea had sent a missile over Japan, and it sparked angry reactions in Tokyo and Seoul.

The missile was launched from Sunan airfield north of Pyongyang about 6:30 a.m. local time, South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said. It flew for 17 minutes, passing over Hokkaido and landing about 1,200 miles to the east, crashing into the Pacific.

The launch triggered emergency alerts in Japan, with text messages and loudspeakers telling residents on the missile’s potential flight path to seek shelter.

The Japanese government warned people not to approach any debris or other suspicious-looking material, a reflection of the fact that North Korean missiles sometimes break up in flight.

The Japanese chief Cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, condemned the latest launch and reiterated that Japan would “not tolerate” North Korea’s actions. The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, had asked his government to “prepare for any contingency,” but Japan did not try to shoot down the missile.

In Washington, the White House said President Donald Trump was briefed on the latest North Korean missile launch by his chief of staff, John Kelly.

Details are still emerging, but today’s launch appeared similar to the last launch, on Aug. 29.

On that day, North Korea fired an Hwasong-12 — an intermediate-range ballistic missile technically capable of flying 3,000 miles, enough to reach the U.S. territory of Guam — from the Sunan airfield. It flew to the east, over Hokkaido and into the Pacific Ocean, rather than on a southward path toward Guam.