People in Japan Tense after N. Korean Missile Firing

Sapporo/Aomori/Tokyo, Oct. 4 (Jiji Press)--Blaring sirens alarmed people in Japan after North Korea fired a ballistic missile over the Japanese archipelago for the first time in five years on Tuesday. Officials of the Hokkaido and Aomori prefectural governments were busy as the central government alerted residents through its J-Alert early warning system while the safety of ships and crews at sea was also a focus of attention. Phones were ringing off the hook from the morning at the crisis management division of the government of Hokkaido, northernmost Japan. Officials hurriedly gathered information and wrote down what was going on a whiteboard. "We're contacting each municipal government, organizations related to disaster prevention and the Self-Defense Forces," an official in charge said. Dressed in a disaster relief garment, Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki arrived at the prefectural government office in Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, around 9:20 a.m. (12:20 a.m. GMT), and told reporters, "I've instructed (people concerned) to thoroughly check the safety of airplanes and vessels related to Hokkaido." In the prefecture, train services of Hokkaido Railway Co., or JR Hokkaido, were canceled or delayed due to the missile launch, overwhelming Sapporo Station with crowds from the morning. People who arrived at the station formed lines to receive certificates of train delays while others anxiously looked up at electronic information boards near ticket gates. The ballistic missile launched by North Korea flew over Japan's Tohoku northeastern region, just south of Hokkaido, and fell into Pacific waters outside Japan's exclusive economic zone after traveling about 4,600 kilometers. It is believed to have landed into an area about 3,200 kilometers east of the coast of the city of Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, part of Tohoku. Officials were working nervously at the disaster management section at the government of Aomori Prefecture, part of Tohoku and located opposite to Hokkaido across the Tsugaru Strait, keeping an eye on television news and other information sources. SDF officers dispatched as liaisons were spotted at the prefectural government building in the city of Aomori. An official reported to an emergency meeting held from 8:45 a.m. that there was no damage to fishing boats at sea. "We want the central government to work on defense measures thoroughly," an official of the federation of fisheries cooperatives in the prefecture said. "I was nervous as the missile fell on the Pacific Ocean this time," said a worker at the fisheries cooperative in the town of Oma in the prefecture. "If there had been a ship out there, it could have been very serious," she said. Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry held an emergency meeting of senior officials in Tokyo, with one uniformed officer pointing out that a series of missile launches by North Korea since late September are meant to warn the United States and South Korea. "We need to carefully analyze their intentions," the officer said. Another official suggested that firing a missile over Japan is very serious, saying that it is an issue "on a different level." Following Tuesday's missile launch, East Japan Railway Co. <9020>, or JR East, and JR Hokkaido temporarily halted services on their Shinkansen bullet train and other lines around 7:30 a.m. JR East suspended Tohoku Shinkansen services between Shin-Aomori Station in the city of Aomori and Morioka Station in Morioka, the capital of Iwate. While services on the section were resumed around 7:50 a.m., the suspension caused delays of up to 18 minutes in train operations. All of non-Shinkansen lines in Aomori Prefecture were temporarily halted. Services were suspended between Shin-Aomori and Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto Station in the Hokkaido city of Hokuto on JR Hokkaido's Hokkaido Shinkansen Line and for the company's all other lines in Hokkaido. Services were resumed gradually from around 7:45 a.m. END