Zarlasht Sadat

A faulty ballistic missile launched by South Korea crashed and blew up during a live-fire drill with the US on Wednesday.

The launch was in response to North Korea’s launch of a ballistic missile over Japan for the first time in five years on Tuesday.

The explosion on Wednesday in the South Korean coastal city of Gangneung caused panic among residents who were uneasy over weapons tests across the border.

With the military and government officials giving no explanation for the explosion for many hours, concerns of a North Korean attack grew.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said no injuries have been reported from the explosion, which involved a short-range Hyumoo-2 missile that crashed inside an air force base in the outskirts of the city.

It said the crash did not affect any civilian facilities. During the same drill, the US military launched four of its own missiles that are part of the Army Tactical Missile System and South Korea fired another Hyumoo-2 successfully.

The home-grown missile is key to South Korea’s pre-emptive and retaliatory strike strategies against the North and is a version of a Russian-designed Iskander missile, which is also possessed by the North.

Kwon Seong-dong, a ruling party politician representing Gangneung, wrote on Facebook that a “weapons system operated by our bloodlike taxpayer money ended up threatening our own people” and called for the military to thoroughly investigate the missile failure.

He also criticised the military for not issuing a notice about the crash while maintaining a media embargo on the joint drills.

“It was an irresponsible response,” Mr Kwon wrote. “They don’t even have an official press release yet.”

South Korea’s military acknowledged the missile malfunction hours after internet users raised alarm about the blast and posted social media videos showing an orange ball of flames emerging from an area they described as near the air force base.

It said it was investigating what caused the “abnormal flight” of the missile.