North Korea has fired two ballistic missiles and the second may have failed and blown up, possibly raining debris inland, according to the media reports.
Monday’s launches came a day after Pyongyang promised offensive and overwhelming responses to new military drills staged by the United States, South Korea and Japan.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the missiles were launched 10 minutes apart in a northeasterly direction from the town of Jangyon in southeastern North Korea.
The military said the first missile flew 600 km and the second 120 km, but did not say where they landed. North Korea typically test-fires missiles towards its eastern waters, but the second missile’s flight distance was too short to reach that far.
Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesperson Lee Sung-joon later told a briefing there appeared to have been problems with the second missile and that if it exploded, its debris would probably have scattered on the ground.
South Korean military sources, said it was highly likely the second missile crashed in an inland area of North Korea, while the first one landed in the waters off North Korea’s eastern city of Chongjin.
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