Japan, South Korea issue missile alerts as North Korea launches rocket

SEOUL, May 31 (UPI) -- Phone alerts and emergency sirens warning citizens to prepare for evacuation blared in Seoul early Wednesday morning as North Korea fired what it said was a "space launch vehicle" for a satellite.

South Korea's military detected a "North Korea-claimed space launch vehicle" fired southward, its Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message to reporters.

An emergency message with the heading "Wartime alert" was sent to mobile phones in Seoul at 6:41 a.m., telling citizens to "please prepare to evacuate and allow children and the elderly to evacuate first." Air raid sirens and loudspeakers throughout the city also issued alerts.

About 20 minutes later, another message was sent out, saying the evacuation alert was issued in error by the Seoul city government.

The South Korean military said that the projectile was fired from Dongchang-ri on the North's west coast at 6:29 a.m. It flew over the sea to the west of the South's border island of Baengnyeong and did not affect the greater Seoul area, the JCS added.

The office of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that North Korea had launched a "suspected ballistic missile" and emergency alerts were briefly issued in Okinawa prefecture urging citizens to seek shelter inside before being lifted.

Earlier this week, North Korea notified Japan and the International Maritime Organization of its plan to launch a satellite between May 31 and June 11. Tokyo said that the North was using the launch as cover to test ballistic missile technology and warned it would shoot down any missiles that entered its territory.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently called the deployment of a military reconnaissance satellite "an urgent requirement of the prevailing security environment of the country."

The launch marks the first provocation from the North since it fired its first solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile last month.