Japan holds evacuation drills as DPRK missile fears grow

A Japanese town conducted an evacuation drill amid growing fears that a DPRK ballistic missile could hit the country.

More than 280 residents and schoolchildren of a small town on Japan's western coast, call Abu, rushed to designated school buildings to seek shelter after sirens from speakers warned of a possible missile flight and debris falling on them.

The drill came less than a week after the DPRK test-fired a short-range projectile which fell provocatively close to Japan, its 12th ballistic missile test this year.

"I was able to stay calm and evacuated in a few minutes," 67-year-old Yuriko Suewaka, who was among the 280 people involved in the exercise, told Jiji Press.

It was the second similar exercise since March, in the northern prefecture of Akita. Other plans are planned over the next few months, AP reported. "The government has requested local communities to prepare for the holding of an evacuation drill," a disaster agency official told AFP on condition of anonymity. The southwestern city of Onojo in Fukuoka prefecture also held a drill on Sunday, independently from the central government, the official added.

Japan has been on edge over DPRK launches since a mid-range ballistic missile flew without warning over the northern part of the country and into the western Pacific in 1998. The pace of the DPRK's missile development has intensified and its projectiles have since last year been landing ever closer to the country's coast.

(CGTN)