As the Kim v Trump war of words escalates, towns across Japan are preparing for what, until recently, felt like a faraway nuisance
A s sirens pierce the air in Sakata, a town on Japan’s north-west coast, primary school children rush from the playground to the safety of the gymnasium. Other residents crouch behind walls or lie down in rice fields, while the public address system urges them to take cover.
More accustomed to the dangers of earthquakes and tsunami, Japan’s people are now having to address a new, manmade threat: North Korean missiles.
In a civil defence drive that has echoes of preparations for US bombing raids during the second world war, Sakata and dozens of other towns across Japan are preparing themselves for what, until recently, represented a distant nuisance that most Japanese regarded with insouciance.
But at the end of a week that featured warnings from Donald Trump to counter North Korean provocations with “fire and fury” – and Pyongyang’s detailed plans to create an “enveloping fire” around the US Pacific territory of Guam – Japan has reason to be concerned.
All 14 of the missiles North Korea has launched this year were aimed towards Japan’s coast, including two intercontinental ballistic missiles tested last month. Few here have forgotten that in 1998, a North Korean long-range missile overflew Japanese territory before splashing into the Pacific.
A missile fired directly at Japan would give people less than 10 minutes to seek shelter, according to experts.
Pyongyang said four Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missiles would pass over three Japanese prefectures, including Hiroshima, on their way to targets 30-40km off Guam.
In response, Japan’s defence minister, Itsunori Onodera, has warned that Japan is within its constitutional rights to shoot down the missiles since, by his reckoning, they represented a threat to Japan’s existence as a nation.
In an unusual move that will not have escaped Pyongyang’s attention, Japan’s defence ministry on Saturday ordered the deployment of missile defense systems in four regions along the missiles’ probable flight path.
To emphasise the sense of readiness, local media carried photographs of PAC-3 interceptor batteries being positioned in the grounds of the defence ministry in central Tokyo.
Onodera cites controversial legislation enacted last year that gives Japan, under certain conditions, the right to exercise collective self-defence or come to the military aid of an ally under attack – most likely the US.
Some experts, and Japanese opposition MPs, claim the unveiling of missile-defence hardware is purely symbolic, given the myriad technical challenges posed by intercepting a missile flying at high altitudes in the direction of a territory more than 1,500 miles away.
