Warning drill for N. Korea missile conducted in western Japan

August 18, 2017

TOKYO- The Japanese government on Friday conducted a drill using the nationwide J-Alert warning system for nine western Japan prefectures, including three that North Korean ballistic missiles may fly over during a possible strike on areas around Guam.

The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry's Fire and Disaster Management Agency carried out the drill after North Korea warned this month that the missiles aimed toward the US Pacific territory will pass over Shimane, Hiroshima and Kochi prefectures.

The training to inform residents promptly of a missile launch was held for all municipalities in the nine prefectures in the Shikoku and Chugoku regions, also including Tottori, Okayama, Yamaguchi, Tokushima, Kagawa, and Ehime prefectures.

J-Alert conveys emergency information, including on missile launches and tsunami alerts, from the central government to municipalities via satellite, relayed to citizens through automatic broadcasts on local wireless communication systems and emails.

During the drill on Friday morning, local government officials checked whether receivers in their offices worked properly to get information from the Cabinet Secretariat via the warning system and whether the broadcasts were activated.

In Shimane and Okayama, some local governments had difficulties involving transmissions of unreadable emails with garbled texts from the prefectural governments. The agency and the prefectural governments are investigating the cause of the problem.

In addition, the city of Yonago in Tottori was unable to send alerts through disaster-warning speakers.

In a J-Alert drill conducted across Japan in November last year, some municipalities failed to put out information partly due to equipment problems.

In the Friday drill, another emergency information network for municipalities, Em-Net, was also tested. Jiji Press