SEOUL – North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Thursday but it failed mid-flight, say the South Korean military.
The ICBM launch is Pyongyang’s seventh this year, and comes amid concerns that it will soon test a nuclear weapon.
It comes a day after both Koreas fired missiles in an escalation of tensions.
That exchange saw the most number of missiles launched by the North in a single day.
North Korea’s multiple launches comes as the US and South Korea are staging their largest-ever joint air drills, which Pyongyang has strongly criticised as “aggressive and provocative”.
On Thursday North Korea fired a long-range missile at around 7:40 A.M., according to a statement from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. A source confirmed with the BBC that it was an ICBM.
It flew for about 760 km and reached a height of around 1,920 km.
But the launch was “presumed to have ended in failure”, South Korea’s military said.
Pyongyang also fired two short-range ballistic missiles.
The launches led the Japanese government to issue a rare emergency alert on Thursday morning to residents in some of its northern regions, telling them to stay indoors.
Tokyo initially said the missile had flown over Japan, but Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada later said it did “not cross the Japanese archipelago, but disappeared over the Sea of Japan”.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida later condemned North Korea’s “repeated missile launches”, calling them an “outrage”.
The US said the launch demonstrated the threat North Korea’s missile programme poses to neighbors and international peace and security.
“Our commitments to the defence of the Republic of Korea and Japan remain ironclad,” a State Department spokesman said.
Meanwhile South Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong and US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said the launches were “deplorable, immoral” during a phone call on Thursday, according to South Korea.
It comes just a month after North Korea launched a ballistic missile over Japan – the first time it had done so in five years.
The North has tested a record number of missiles this year as tensions have risen. (BBC)
