A failed ballistic missile launch has caused panic in a normally quiet South Korean city after the missile slammed into the ground and sparked a massive fire, officials said on Wednesday. The South Korean military fired a Hyunmoo-2 short-range ballistic missile on Tuesday night, which malfunctioned and crashed shortly after launch.
ball of flames
The rocket’s propellant caught fire but its warhead did not explode, a South Korean military official told the Yonhap news agency. Seoul and Washington have held multiple joint exercises, dropping bombs and firing missiles, in response to North Korea’s launch of an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), which flew over Japan on Tuesday.
Viral images on social media, unauthenticated at this time, showed a ball of orange flames, which users claimed was near Gangneung Air Base on the country’s east coast.
“Many panicked residents called the city hall,” said a Gangneung city hall official. “At first we didn’t know what was going on because we hadn’t received any warning from the military about such training,” he added on condition of anonymity.
“I thought there was a war”
Seoul and Pyongyang are still technically at war, and the 1950-1953 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. Armed clashes between the two neighbors are rare, but the fall of this missile led many residents to believe that war had broken out.
“I thought there was a war going on but it turns out it was military training,” one user tweeted.
“What took them so long to confirm (this)? If there was a war, we would surely find out the next day,” another user wrote.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said no casualties were reported and they were investigating the cause of the misfire.
Source: BFM TV
