Japan and South Korea had put their missile defenses on alert for the launch of North Korea’s first spy satellite announced for Wednesday. However, the rocket that was supposed to put it into orbit ended up falling into the sea. Not before causing the activation of citizen alert systems in Seoul and the Japanese islands of Okinawa and the condemnation of Japan and South Korea, who considered this action a covert missile test.
At 6:41 local time, the phones of the inhabitants of Seoul began to vibrate and the loudspeakers in each neighborhood to thunder with messages urging citizens to “prepare to evacuate” on the occasion of the rocket launch.
Almost at the same time, the authorities of the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, in the southwest of the island, also issued a message via mobile phone and public address system indicating that a projectile “had apparently been launched from North Korea” in the direction of that region and recommended “taking refuge”. inside a building or in underground installations”.
According to North Korean media, the regime, which had notified the International Maritime Organization (IMO) earlier this week that it would launch a rocket to put a military reconnaissance satellite into orbit in the coming days, took off the device at 6:27 a.m. from the Sohae space launch base in the northeast.
Japan withdrew the alert a few minutes after activating it, considering that there was no risk of impact on its territory, while the South Korean Ministry of the Interior indicated that the alert was issued by mistake in Seoul (the rocket flew more than 200 kilometers away of the South Korean capital), where the city council apologized for “the confusion” generated.
This did not prevent fear from affecting the population. “Panic gripped me. The 911 lines were busy and the internet connection was slow,” said Lee Juyeon, 33, a resident of Seoul — a densely populated city of about 10 million people — and mother of one. of 9 months. “So, not knowing what was really going on, I went down to the basement with my baby in a baby carrier.” Ten minutes later, the Home Office acknowledged that it had made a mistake.
After all the commotion caused, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) reported that the rocket had fallen into the Yellow Sea (called the West Sea in both Koreas) about 200 kilometers west of Eocheong Island (in turn about 180 kilometers southwest of Seoul) “due to an abnormal flight.”
North Korean media soon confirmed that the Chollima-1, the new type of space rocket carrying the Malligyong-1 satellite (“Telescope-1” in Korean), crashed into the Yellow Sea after the first stage separated. of the projectile and the ignition of the engine of the second failed.
A spokesman for the North Korean National Aerospace Development Administration (NADA) was quoted by the state agency KCNA as saying that “the failures will be investigated in detail” and that measures will be taken to “carry out a second launch as soon as possible after several partial tests”. .
The South Korean military ended up finding a fragment of the rocket in the water in the area where it was reported to have crashed. Images shared by Seoul show a cylindrical fragment at least 2-3 meters in diameter and 2-3 meters in height.
The area where the remains were found corresponds to a perimeter whose coordinates Pyongyang notified the IMO so that navigation could be vetoed as it was considered the point of impact of the first phase of the rocket.
Today was the sixth launch of a satellite by North Korea, although in this case it would be the first device specifically intended for military reconnaissance. Pyongyang has apparently only managed to get two devices into orbit (in 2012 and 2016), neither of which have ever shown signs of being operational.
For their part, the authorities in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington harshly condemned the launch, considering that it is actually a covert test to test ballistic missile technologies, something that is punished by the UN resolutions that have weighed on Pyonyang since 2006.
The South Korean National Security Council (NSC) said the launch “has been a serious violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and a serious provocation that threatens peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in the international community.” .
For his part, one of the spokesmen for the US National Security Council, Adam Hodge, said in a statement that “this alleged space launch involved technologies directly related to the intercontinental ballistic missile program of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (official name of North Korea)”.
