North Korea missile appears to fail over Sea of Japan

North Korea fired one missile from its east coast just before 6 am local time on Wednesday (9pm GMT Tuesday) but it appears to have failed, South Korea’s military officials said.

The missile launched was believed to be an intermediate-range Musudan missile, said one of the officials, who asked for anonymity because he was not formally authorised to speak to the media.

The US military had detected a missile launch from North Korea, Navy Commander Dave Benham, a spokesman from the US military’s Pacific Command, told Reuters on Tuesday without providing details.

Japan on Tuesday put its military on alert for a possible North Korean ballistic missile launch and South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said, citing an unnamed government source, that the North was seen to be moving an intermediate-range missile to its east coast.

The launch y violated a United Nations resolution and the Japanese government will strongly protest, Kyodo news agency quoted a Japanese government statement as saying. Japanese Defence Minister Gen Nakatani told reporters after the launch that there had been no effect on Japan’s security and that the government would continue to collect and analyse information.

North Korea has failed in all four previous attempts to launch the Musudan, which theoretically has the range to reach any part of Japan and the US territory of Guam.

North Korea is believed to have up to 30 Musudan missiles, according to South Korean media, which officials said were first deployed around 2007, although the North had never attempted to test-fire them until this year. – (Reuters)