Tokyo prepares for war with mass evacuation amid missile warning

Hundreds of residents fled an amusement park today as they took part in the city’s first missile evacuation practise 

Loudspeakers across the city warned off a simulated missile attack and urged people to shelter indoors or go underground.

A voice on the speaker told the Tokyo Dome Amusement Park: “An advisory about a missile launch was just issued. Everyone, please stay calm and seek shelter in the basement. Those who are already indoors, please stay there.”

“An advisory about a missile launch was just issued. Everyone, please stay calm and seek shelter in the basement. Those who are already indoors, please stay there,”

A security guard ran across the complex, shouting “A missile was launched!”

Despite an appearance of thawing tensions between North and South Korea, with the North’s participation in next month’s Winter Olympics in South Korea, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned the Japanese people to remain vigilant, and said threat from North Korea was “unprecedented” and “imminent.” 

Japan is escalating efforts to prepare its citizens for a possible war as Tokyo believes the threat posed by Pyongyang’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons development is deepening.

Prime Minister Abe added: ”It is no exaggeration that the security situation surrounding Japan is the toughest since World War Two. We must have North Korea give up its nuclear and missile development completely in a verifiable and irreversible way.”

Hiroyuku Suenaga, a Japanese government official, told volunteers after the Tokyo exercise: “”A missile from North Korea would arrive in less than 10 minutes and the first alert would come about three minutes after launch, which gives us only around five minutes to find shelter.”

More than 20 evacuation drills have been conducted around Japan since last year amid threats from North Korea, but Monday’s activity was the first missile evacuation drill in Tokyo.

North Korea has sent ballistic missiles flying over northern Japan at least twice. The North also test-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles in lofted trajectories that fell inside Japanese exclusive economic waters

Small Japanese towns and villages have conducted similar drills as North Korea has pushed ahead with its missile and nuclear weapons programmes.

Japan’s defences against a ballistic missile strike include Aegis destroyers in the Sea of Japan armed with interceptor missiles designed to destroy warheads in space. PAC-3 Patriot missile batteries represent a last line of defence against warheads that can plunge to their targets at several kilometres per second.

Japan has also decided to buy two land-based Aegis batteries and cruise missiles that could strike North Korean missile sites.