The latest barrage came after a launch vehicle carrying North Korea’s second military reconnaissance satellite exploded on Monday just after liftoff.
North Korea fired a volley of at least 10 missiles into its eastern seas on Thursday, the South’s military said, days after the Pyongyang regime’s leader Kim Jong Un demanded his country’s top missile scientists « make redoubled efforts » to bolster national defense.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the salvo of rockets was launched from the Sunan area in Pyongyang and detected at just after 6 a.m. local time. The suspected short-range ballistic missiles landed in the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan.
The launch was also tracked by neighboring Japan. Its Defense Ministry estimated at least one of the ballistic missiles reached an altitude of 62 miles and flew for 217 miles. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said his government remained in close communication with the United States and South Korea.
Amid rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the U.S. and its two treaty allies activated a real-time data-sharing mechanism in December, which they used to analyze North Korea’s last missile volley on April 22.
The latest barrage came after a launch vehicle carrying North Korea’s second military reconnaissance satellite, the Malligyong-1-1, exploded late on Monday moments after liftoff, a setback for Kim’s plan to put three spy satellite into orbit this year.
