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North Korea fired a missile that flew over Japan early Tuesday morning, prompting fresh concern in Tokyo and Seoul. The missile, passing high above Japan about 10 minutes after launch, split into three pieces and splashed into the Pacific Ocean, east of the northern main Japanese island of Hokkaido, according to Japan's government. The trajectory triggered satellite-activated emergency alarms to the Japanese public, warning people in the Tohoku region to take cover because of a possible impact from a North Korean missile. The missile was launched (at 20:57 UTC Monday/05:57 in Seoul and Tokyo on Tuesday) from Sunan, near Pyongyang's international airport, flying more than 2,700 kilometers at a maximum altitude of around 550 kilometers, according to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. Japanese authorities say their anti-missile batteries made no attempt to shoot down the projectile. The North Korean launch "did not pose a threat to North America," said U.S. Army Colonel Robert Manning, a spokesman at the Pentagon. An official at the U.S. National Security Council told VOA that authorities in Washington were awaiting specific information from the U.S. Pacific Command about the type of North Korean missile that was fired. Authorities in Japan sounded an alert for the northern part of the country as soon as the launch was detected, but no rocket fragments were known to hit the ground. | 
