Japanese TV sends mistaken alarm

TOKYO — The Japanese government called on public broadcaster NHK on Wednesday to make sure a false alarm warning of a missile launch of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will not be repeated, with tensions still high because of Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear programs.

NHK issued an erroneous alarm on its website on Tuesday evening, saying Pyongyang appeared to have launched a missile and urging people to take shelter. A similar gaffe caused panic in the US island state of Hawaii at the weekend.

Japan’s public broadcaster put out another message on its website within five minutes correcting itself and said no government warning, known as a “J-alert”, had been issued. It was far faster than the nearly 40 minutes that lapsed before the Hawaii alert was withdrawn. 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.

“The J-alert system is information of extreme importance in maintaining the security and safety of the people, so we’ve asked that they ensure this does not happen again,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular news conference.

There have been no reports of panic or other disruptions following the NHK report.

NHK said the mistake was the result of an error by a staff member who was operating the alert system for online news, but did not elaborate.

“The flash was a mistake,” NHK said. “We are very sorry.”

The broadcaster declined to say what the other news flash was about, but some domestic news outlets issued bulletins at around the same time about the latest recipients of a Japanese literary award.

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

NHK is looking into measures to prevent a recurrence but could not comment on specific details because the plan had not been firmed up yet, an NHK spokeswoman said.

The false alert was also sent to mobile phone users of NHK’s online news distribution service. It was not clear how many of its 300,000 users have a function to let news alerts pop up on the cell phone screen when activated, NHK said.