North Korea launches a missile on Japan, which asks its citizens to take refuge "underground"

• North Korea Two short-range ballistic missiles launched into the Sea of ​​Japan

• Demilitarized Zone Kamala Harris' walk through the last frontier of the Cold War

ballistic missile

has flown over

The clock was about to strike 8 a.m. in

when the Japanese prime minister's office posted this announcement on Twitter, which was later accompanied by a strange warning to citizens of two northern prefectures,

to seek refuge .

"inside a building or underground".

It had been a long time since the anti-aircraft sirens had sounded in Japan because of the threat in the form of a missile launched from neighboring North Korea.

The last time a North Korean projectile flew over Japanese land, specifically the island of Hokkaido, was in September 2017, shortly after

carried out its last nuclear test.

According to reports from Japan and

an intermediate-range ballistic missile was launched at around 7:22 a.m. from

in Jagang province on

Japanese media reported that trains were suspended in Hokkaido and Aomori until it was confirmed that the missile had fallen into the Sea of ​​Japan, called

outside the exclusive economic zone of the Asian country.

"North Korea's series of actions, including its repeated launches of ballistic missiles, threatens the peace and security of Japan, and poses a serious challenge to the entire international community," said senior Japanese government spokesman

in a brief press conference.

It is the

's regime

has carried out 23 tests so far this year, from hypersonic weapons to its feared intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), capable of reaching the

North Korea has never before launched so many launches in such a short time.

In comparison, it only carried out four tests in 2020 and eight in 2021. And from

they have been sponsoring for a couple of months that the main course will soon arrive: a nuclear test.

Doing so would be his seventh test with Kim at the helm, the first since 2017.

This latest missile to fly over Japan comes a few days after the military from Washington,

and

conducted joint anti-submarine exercises in the region.

The escalation of tensions took a notch last week when the South Korean navy and the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier

which is in South Korea for the first time in five years, staged massive joint exercises.

Some exercises that also coincided with the visit of the US Vice President,

to the

that separates the Koreas, becoming the first

official to do so and unleashing Pyongyang's warning: "A extremely dangerous act that could bring the peninsula to the brink of war."

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