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 ».
