A UK-expat tells us how the residents of Hokkaido reacted to Tuesday morning’s air raid alert.
There’s tension across the world after North Korea fired a missile over northern Japan, but life under the weapon’s flight path goes on.
The missile, launched early on Tuesday, flew over Hokkaido island, Japan’s second-largest island, and fell into the North Pacific Ocean.
Jonathan Knight runs a small clothing business in the Hirafu area of the island.
At first, he and his neighbours were woken not by sirens, but by text messages at 6am.
„Japan has this warning system, “ Jonathan explained to the BBC. „A message came through on our phones, which just started pinging like crazy, and it basically said, ‚Please evacuate to a sturdy building or basement‘.
„The next thing we could hear was sirens going off. I imagine it was a bit like London in the Blitz.“
Locals in Jonathan’s „small and unusually quiet village“ were told a missile had flown across the region but were not told where it had landed.
„We just didn’t know quite what was happening.“
Jonathan decided to go for what he thought was the best option: „I got up and did the British thing, I made a cup of tea“.
