North Korean missile launch prompts brief warning for Japanese island to take shelter

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staffs said the North Korean missile launched from near the capital Pyongyang flew toward the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

North Korea launched a ballistic missile that landed in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan on Thursday, prompting Japan to order residents on an island to take shelter as a precaution. The order has been lifted.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staffs said the North Korean missile launched from near the capital Pyongyang flew toward the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. The statement described the missile as a weapon with a medium or longer range but didn’t say how far the missile flew.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said South Korea’s military boosted its surveillance posture and maintains a firm readiness in close coordination with the United States.

Japan said the missile landed in the water but did not immediately give a more exact landing location.

Earlier, the launch had prompted the Japanese government to urge people to seek shelter on the northernmost island of Hokkaido. The government then corrected and retracted its missile alert saying its analysis showed there was no possibility of a missile landing near Hokkaido. Officials in charge of the government crisis management division could not be immediately reached.

Last October, Japan issued a similar evacuation order when a North Korean intermediate-range missile flew over Japan in a launch that demonstrated the potential to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. At the time, Japanese authorities alerted residents in its northeastern regions to seek shelter and halted trains, although no damages were reported before the weapon landed in the Pacific.

Thursday’s launch, the latest in the North’s barrage of weapons tests this year, came days after its leader Kim Jong Un vowed to enhance his nuclear arsenal in more “practical and offensive” ways.

This year, North Korea has launched about 30 missiles in response to South Korean-U.S. military drills that it views as a rehearsal for an invasion. South Korean and U.S. officials say their drills are defensive in nature and were arranged to respond to North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threats.