North Korea fires more missiles, ‘serious provocation’ says South

North Korea is reported to have fired two more ballistic missiles into the East, prompting an alert for people in affected areas underneath to take cover.

The latest launch by Pyongyang is at least the seventh in two weeks, said South Korea’s military. According to the South Korean military’s joint chiefs of staff, the missile launch came from the southeast of the country as he said that it is a “serious provocation that harms peace”.

Earlier on Saturday, the North defended its missile launches stating that they are for self-defence against direct US military threats and that they have not harmed the safety of neighbouring countries and regions.

Here are the top five updates on the missile launch:

1. North Korea fired two ballistic missiles on Sunday, authorities in neighbouring countries said. The missile launch is at least seventh such operation by Pyongyang in recent days, which has prompted widespread concerns in the US and in Tokyo and Seoul, its allies.

2. Both the missiles reached an altitude of 100 km (60 miles) and covered a range of 350 km, Japan’s state minister of defence, Toshiro Ino said, reported news agency Reuters. He added that the first missile was fired at around 1:47 a.m. local time (1647 GMT) and the second one was fired around six minutes later.

3. The two missiles fell outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, the Japanese government said. According to the coast guard, it had so far not received any reports of damage to Japanese ships, national broadcaster NHK reported.

4. “While strengthening our monitoring and vigilance, our military is maintaining a full readiness posture in close cooperation with the United States,” South Korean military’s joint chiefs of staff said, Yonhap reported.

5. The United States military’s Indo-Pacific Command in a statement said that they were “aware of the two ballistic missile launches and are consulting closely with our allies and partners,” reported AFP. “The launch shows the destabilising nature of North Korea’s missile program,” it added.