Photo/Illutration North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the country’s satellite launch preparatory committee on May 16. The photo was distributed by the Korean Central News Agency. (Korea News Service)

Japan lodged a protest with North Korea after its rocket launch prompted emergency alerts and evacuation warnings in the southern island prefecture of Okinawa early on May 31.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency said the rocket, carrying a military reconnaissance satellite, crashed into the Yellow Sea as the second stage experienced problems after the first-stage separation.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno condemned the launch, saying it “threatens the peace and security of our country, the region and the international community.”

Matsuno told a news conference, which was called after a meeting of four ministers in charge of the National Security Council, that Japan filed a complaint with North Korea through diplomatic channels in Beijing.

The Japanese government says what North Korea calls an “artificial satellite” is effectively a ballistic missile.

“The ballistic missile launch violates related U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Matsuno said.

The government issued an emergency warning via its J-Alert national early warning system at 6:30 a.m., calling on residents throughout Okinawa Prefecture to take cover indoors.

The warning was lifted a little past 7 a.m. after the government concluded there was no risk of a missile landing on Japanese soil.

The KCNA report said North Korea will conduct a second launch at an early date after investigating the cause of the failure. It cited problems with engines and fuel.

Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada told reporters that his order to the Self-Defense Forces on May 29 to destroy missiles that are falling within Japanese territory will remain in effect until June 11.

North Korea had notified the Japanese government on May 29 that it would launch an artificial satellite between 12 a.m. on May 31 and 12 a.m. on June 11.

The Foreign Ministry said senior diplomats from Japan, the United States and South Korea discussed the situation in a telephone meeting.

The officials agreed that Pyongyang’s repeated ballistic missile launches pose a grave and immediate threat to regional security and are a clear and serious challenge to the international community.

In the Okinawa prefectural government office in Naha, officials in charge of crisis management were scrambling for information after the J-Alert warning was issued.

They had just been put on an around-the-clock alert against North Korean missiles from 12 a.m. May 31.

Shigenori Takenishi, 61, who heads the fisheries cooperative association on Yonagunijima island in the prefecture, expressed anger over North Korea’s action.

Fishermen had refrained from leaving the island for a few days because powerful Typhoon No. 2 is approaching Okinawa Prefecture.

“(The missile warning came) at a time when fishermen are usually out in the sea,” Takenishi said. “There was a possibility that fragments of a missile fell over the area.”

Yonagunijima island is one of the places where the SDF deployed Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) surface-to-air missiles to intercept incoming North Korean missiles.

Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki said no damage was reported in the prefecture, but he will continue to monitor the situation.

He also criticized the missile launch, particularly because local municipalities were already busy preparing for the approaching typhoon.

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