Japan’s decision to alert people on the sprawling northern island of Hokkaido that a North Korean missile might be heading their way touched off a social media storm, with many asking for a few more specifics on a location.
(Bloomberg) — Japan’s decision to alert people on the sprawling northern island of Hokkaido that a North Korean missile might be heading their way touched off a social media storm, with many asking for a few more specifics on a location.
Hashtags that can translate as “where in Hokkaido?” and “too broad” trended on Twitter in Japan on Thursday, after the government asked people to take shelter immediately. The island covers about the same area as Austria, and stretches at points along a distance nearly as far as Baltimore is from Boston.
The alert issued at 7:55 a.m. told people to evacuate immediately to a building or underground, because a missile was expected to fall in the Hokkaido area at about 8:00 a.m.
Twitter user @pino_zou3 used both of the trending hashtags in a post showing clouds floating across a morning sky while a siren could be heard blaring in the background.
“Air raid warnings, evacuation warnings and evacuation orders — this message is indeed enough to make you jump out of your skin,” another Twitter user wrote, adding Hokkaido is just too big, and without more details on a specific location, there isn’t much time to find safety.
The alert was lifted about 20 minutes after it was issued, with authorities saying the missile posed no threat to people on the ground. The government’s top spokesman then defended the use of the system known as J-Alert, which has been met with criticism before for false alarms, messages delivered too late and not being of much help for huge swaths of the country where most homes don’t have basements to offer shelter.
“The J-Alert was issued from the viewpoint of putting the utmost importance to the safety of the public,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a news briefing in defending the decision. He added that Japan lost track of the missile on radar and lifted the alert when there was no possibility of it striking the country’s territory.
The missile was in the air for about 40 minutes, flying on a lofted trajectory that could have given Japan a chance to pinpoint a possible landing area in Hokkaido if it didn’t lose track of the rocket.
It was another embarrassment for the J-Alert system. In October, it sent out a warning of a missile being overhead, but by the time many people were aware of the alert, the missile had already splashed down in the Pacific Ocean more than 3,000 kilometers (1,870 miles) away.
What’s worse, it flew so far overhead — more than twice the altitude of the International Space Station — that it posed no threat at all.
While Japan has more than 94,000 evacuation facilities nationwide, including schools and community centers used in natural disasters, only 1.4% have basements that might offer shelter from a missile, according to government data.
People who live away from major metro centers, where subway networks could be used as shelters, may face a life-threatening quandary in the event of a missile attack from China or North Korea that could come in a matter of 15 minutes or less from launch.
Japanese lawmakers are pushing for a rollout of shelters where residents can take refuge, but it may take time before any are built. A bill laying out a schedule for shelter provision could be passed as soon as next fiscal year, Keiji Furuya, a ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker and former minister for national resilience, said in an interview.
The initial plan would be to strengthen existing facilities and equip them with emergency supplies, to avoid massive budget outlays, Furuya said at his offices in Tokyo. The strategy is similar to that of Taiwan, which the Taiwan News reported has more than 100,000 shelters in public and private buildings. Singapore is also well-equipped with such evacuation centers, including in rail stations.
–With assistance from Isabel Reynolds.
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