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Alarm sirens in Seoul, South Korea, and the Okinawa region of Japan. The background to this was disturbing activities in North Korea.
Fumio Kishida, Prime Minister of Japan
"Today, an object was launched from North Korea. It's obviously a ballistic missile."
In fact, it was about the launch of the North Korean launch vehicle ›Chollima-1.‹ The regime in Pyongyang wanted to launch a military spy satellite into space for the first time.
After the missile launch, the city of Okinawa sounded the alarm, South Korea responded with sirens and frantic text messages telling the population to prepare for a possible evacuation.
But a little later, the missile disappeared from the radar. The North Korean state news agency KCNA confirmed that "the new satellite launch vehicle 'Chollima-1' had sunk in the Yellow Sea." South Korea's military searched for debris in the Yellow Sea.
In Seoul, the misleading alarms had caused uncertainty.
Lee Gil-Won, Seoul resident
"I was a little confused by this morning's warning. But I wasn't so worried, because North Korea does things like that more often. I would rather like the warning message to contain more detailed information. If they send another warning message in the future, it would be better if they included instructions."
The Ministry of the Interior said that the warning circulated by the city administration had been "incorrectly published".
Oh Se-Hoon, Mayor of Seoul
"This emergency message could be the overreaction of a work-level officer, but it wasn't a mistake. In principle, it is important to react exaggeratedly. There must be no compromises on security."
North Korea's ruler Kim Jong Un inspected his country's first military spy satellite in mid-May. He described the development as one of the central projects in the defense sector.