North Korea<\/a> on Monday might have had an \u201cabnormal\u201d flight trajectory and could have fallen inland, possibly near the capital of Pyongyang, the South Korean military said.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNorth Korea launched two ballistic missiles on Monday morning, according to reports from the South Korean, American and Japanese governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The missiles, launched at 5:05 a.m. and 5:15 a.m. local time, had two different flight distances, 600 kilometers (373 miles) for the first and 120 kilometers (75 miles) for the second, according to a statement from South Korea\u2019s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When asked about the disparate distances, Lee Sung-jun, spokesperson for the JCS, in a briefing said, \u201cThere is the possibility that the second launched missile had an abnormal flight in the early stage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf it had exploded during an abnormal flight, there is the possibility that debris fell inland,\u201d Lee said, clarifying that an \u201cexplosion\u201d is one of many possibilities. The military is \u201ccomprehensively analyzing\u201d various possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added that no damage has been confirmed so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Korea said the first missile, with the 600-kilometer (373-mile) flight distance, was a short-range ballistic missile, but Lee would only say the second was \u201ca ballistic missile,\u201d which leaves open the possibility of it being a new weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to JCS, the two missiles were launched northeastward from the Changyon-gun area of South Hwanghae province, about 130 kilometers (81 miles) southwest of Pyongyang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the missile exploded after flying 120 kilometers (75 miles) northeastward from Changyon-gun, the debris could have landed near Pyongyang, based on the distance traveled from the launch site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The JCS could not confirm whether there was an explosion near the capital, which is North Korea\u2019s largest city and home to more than 3 million people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last week, North Korea said it successfully conducted a test to deploy multiple warheads from a single-stage engine for a medium- to long-range ballistic missile, marking an important milestone in upgrading its missile technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Korea later said the North Korean claim was false.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lee, the JCS spokesperson, said that during a successful test, multiple warheads should separate from a missile during the descending stage of its flight, but North Korea\u2019s missile had exploded in the early stage during launch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CNN \u2014 A ballistic missile launched by North Korea on Monday might have had an \u201cabnormal\u201d flight trajectory and could have fallen inland, possibly near the capital of Pyongyang, the South Korean military said. North Korea launched two ballistic missiles on Monday morning, according to reports from the South Korean, American and Japanese governments. The missiles, launched at 5:05 a.m. and 5:15 a.m. local time, had two different flight distances, 600 kilometers (373 miles) for the first and 120 kilometers (75 miles) for the second, according to a statement from South Korea\u2019s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). When asked about the disparate distances,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40269,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40270,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40268\/revisions\/40270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}