FALSE ALARM

“LOL.” Another, using the name Michiya Hayashi, wrote: “Following Hawaii, NHK did it too. Don’t become the boy who cried wolf.”

If the citizens of Japan and Hawaii were only starting to shake off any sense of unease, North Korea waded into the debate Tuesday, with its state-run newspaper describing the false alarm in Hawaii as a “tragicomedy.”

“The entire island was thrown into an utter chaos at the news that a ballistic missile was coming in,” said the newspaper, Rodong Sinmun.

The newspaper also characterized a tweet by President Donald Trump two weeks ago in which he claimed to have a bigger nuclear button than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “a spasm of a lunatic” and the “bark of a rabid dog.”

“The spasm of Trump in the new year reflects the desperate mental state of a loser who failed to check the vigorous advance of the army and people” of North Korea, the newspaper said in a commentary.

Trump has so far not responded to those comments.

Tension has grown in Japan over North Korean missile tests as the missiles have flown closer to Japanese coasts. NHK and other Japanese media generally alert the public to each missile test, and the government has issued emergency notices when the missiles flew over Japan.

Japan is also stepping up its missile-intercepting capabilities and conducting missile drills across the country in which residents, including schoolchildren and elderly people, rush to community centers, cover their heads and duck to the floor. A major drill is planned in downtown Tokyo next week.

Unlike the mistaken Hawaii warning, the NHK alert did not contain the statement, “This is not a drill.”

The Hawaii agency has now changed its protocols to require that two people send an alert and made it easier to cancel a false alarm.