Amid rising tension, NHK says rocket launched into sea off Hokkaido before apologising for error<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s public broadcaster, NHK, mistakenly reported that North Korea had filed a missile that landed in the sea off the country\u2019s northernmost island of Hokkaido early on Friday.<\/p>\n
NHK ran a newsflash on its website and news app at 12.22 am, but corrected the error about 20 minutes later, according to the Nikkei daily business paper.<\/p>\n
The broadcaster apologised for the mistake, saying it had been intended for \u201ctraining purposes\u201d.<\/p>\n
The original report stated that the missile had landed in the sea about 2,000km east of Hokkaido.<\/p>\n
North Korea sent missiles over the island in 2017<\/a> to demonstrate its ability to strike US military targets on the Pacific island of Guam.<\/p>\n Two launches in August and September that year triggered alerts urging million of residents in northern Japan to take cover<\/a> in sturdy buildings or underground.<\/p>\n Friday\u2019s erroneous online bulletin comes at a time of heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula, as Pyongyang\u2019s end-of year deadline approaches for the US to make concessions to resurrect stalled denuclearisation talks<\/a>.<\/p>\n