SEOUL (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 31st May, 2023) A raid alert, issued in South Korea's capital Seoul early on Wednesday following North Korea's rocket launch, was declared by mistake, the South Korean Ministry of the Interior and Safety said in another message sent to phones of Seoul's residents.
"We inform you that an air alert was declared in Seoul at 6:41 a.m. (local time, 21:42 GMT on Tuesday) by mistake," the message read.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said earlier in the day that Pyongyang has launched what is believed to be a "space launch vehicle" southward.
Following the launch, residents of Seoul received notifications on their phones urging them "to prepare for evacuation and to prepare to evacuate children, the elderly, and the weak first," a Sputnik correspondent reported. The air raid alert was also sounded on loudspeakers across Seoul.
An evacuation order was also briefly declared in Japan's southern prefecture of Okinawa, with residents receiving notifications on their phones and local media broadcasting the message, a Sputnik correspondent reported. However, the Japanese authorities said the evacuation order was lifted.
On Monday, North Korea reportedly informed Japan and the International Maritime Organization that it planned to launch a reconnaissance satellite between May 31 and June 11. Debris from the rocket is expected to fall outside Japan's exclusive economic zone, in the Yellow Sea, southwest of North Korea, and in the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean, off the Philippines. The US, Japan and South Korea held phone talks over Pyongyang's plan to put a satellite into orbit. Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada ordered to shoot down the rocket if it poses a threat to the country's territory.
