Days after Hawaii alert gaffe, Japan issues false alarm about a missile launch

Reuters

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese public broadcaster NHK issued a false alarm about a North Korean missile launch on Tuesday, just days after a similar gaffe caused panic in Hawaii, but it managed to correct the error within minutes.

It was not immediately clear what triggered the mistake.

“We are still checking,” an NHK spokesman said.  

NHK’s 6.55 p.m. alert said: “North Korea appears to have launched a missile … The government urges people to take shelter inside buildings or underground.”

The same alert was sent to mobile phone users of NHK’s online news distribution service.

In five minutes, the broadcaster put out another message correcting itself.

Regional tension soared after North Korea in September conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test and in November said it had successfully tested a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach all of the U.S. mainland. It regularly threatens to destroy Japan and the United States.

There were no immediate reports of panic or other disruption following the Japanese report.

Human error and a lack of fail-safe measures during a civil defense warning drill led to the false missile alert that stirred panic across Hawaii, a state emergency management agency spokesman said.

Elaborating on the origins of Saturday’s false alarm, which went uncorrected for nearly 40 minutes, spokesman Richard Rapoza said the employee who mistakenly sent the missile alert had been “temporarily reassigned” to other duties.

Jim

8 thoughts on “Days after Hawaii alert gaffe, Japan issues false alarm about a missile launch

  1. On the false alarms: The insanity is pretty thick right now. No real big event just yet. Only real big threats, which in themselves are real big events. Seems they want us at high tension while they steal more rights and pervert more values (so many people walkin’ around lookin’ like walkin’ parodies. Used to be uniqueness was original and individual, but now it’s just sameness. Ha! uniqueness has become sameness. We gotta frikkin’ escape that).

    When I heard the “let’s nuke Germany” posit, it seemed as if they are utilizing a more blatant platform, blatancy as strategy to draw us out.

    Nuke Germany: Blatant

    Missile Mistakes: Blatant

    Palestinian teenager – 10 yrs. for slapping home invader: Blatant

    Yemen: Blatant (but so few see)

    Inflation: Blatant (been shopping lately?)

    One could go on and on, it’s a new ballsy approach. Ugly power.

    Me thinks they might sink their own ship.

    .

  2. They’ve never happened before, but now they’re one day after another, in two separate countries. And we’re supposed to believe both of these missile alerts were mistakes, right?

  3. One’s an instance, two’s a coincidence….now watch out for two more in the next few days which will make it a pattern and a conspiracy.

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