North Korea's Rodong missiles have increased in strike accuracy, report says

SEOUL, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- North Korea's mid-range Rodong missiles have increased in accuracy as Pyongyang has accelerated weapons development in recent months.

A South Korean government source told Yonhap on Friday that North Korea's launch of three Rodong missiles on Sept. 5 all showed the same results.

The missiles traveled for 620 miles, landed in Japan's air defense identification zone, and all dropped within a radius that extended less than a mile, the source said.

The circular error probability, the measure of a weapon system's precision, has decreased from previous estimates that ranged 2-2.5 miles.

With the kind of improved accuracy that was demonstrated by the recent launches, the Rodong missiles, when equipped with a miniaturized nuclear warhead, a chemical or biological weapon could cause "unimaginable" destruction, the source said.

There is also some speculation in Seoul the three North Korean missiles launched in early September were fired using a continuous shooting mode. North Korea could deliver dozens if not hundreds of projectiles if it has mastered the technology, according to the report.

North Korea may have also used this method of continuous shooting when it fired shells across the Northern Limit Line in 2010.

North Korea's missile and nuclear tests have jolted the region and have been widely condemned.

Japan press previously reported Pyongyang launched the missiles to test out the missile defense systems of Japan, the United States and South Korea, and that North Korea launched multiple projectiles to make interception more difficult.