North Korea has fired a ballistic missile in the latest terrifying launch in one week.
It comes after North Korea launched a missile test hours after a visit by US Vice-President Kamala Harris, South Korea's military said yesterday.
Two short-range ballistic missiles were fired into the sea off the North's east coast, it said, in the third such breach of UN sanctions this week.
This has been a record year for missile tests in North Korea and the latest launches are timed to send a message.
They come as the US and South Korea held joint naval drills this week around the Korean peninsula.
Earlier on Thursday, Ms Harris met South Korea's leader Yoon Suk-yeol shortly after her arrival in the capital Seoul.
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KCNA via KNS/AFP via Getty Image)Both condemned Pyongyang's actions.
In a White House statement, the two leaders criticised Pyongyang's "provocative nuclear rhetoric and ballistic missile launches", and "reaffirmed [their] alignment... and goal of the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula".
The vice-president also "underscored that the United States is committed to defending [South Korea]... and welcomed [their] close co-operation".
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AFP via Getty Images)South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile launched from the western inland town of Taechon flew 370 miles cross-country at a maximum altitude of 37 miles before landing in waters off North Korea’s eastern coast.
Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, noted to ABC News that the missile in North Korea flew the same distance from its Taechon launch point as the distance to South Korea's southern port Busan.
The intelligence agencies of South Korea and the US are analysing further details, but the Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said the ballistic missile may have possibly flown on an irregular trajectory.
It fell "near the eastern coast of North Korea", outside of Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone he added.
