South Korea flexes missile power after North test

Two days after North Korea’s nuclear test, South Korea touted on Thursday the deployment of a new cruise missile capable of hitting targets in the North “anywhere, at any time”.

The defence ministry called in reporters for a special video presentation of the recently deployed missile being fired from a warship and a submarine.

“With this missile, we could hit any facility, equipment or individual target in the North anywhere, at any time of our choosing,” army Major General Ryu Young-Jeo told the briefing.

Defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok said the missile was accurate enough to target a particular window on a building.

It has “deadly destructive power” that could “restrain the enemy headquarters’ activities” during wartime, Kim told reporters.

South Korea’s military has been on a heightened state of alert ever since Pyongyang first threatened the nuclear test which was eventually conducted on Tuesday.

It was the North’s third test, following previous detonations in 2006 and 2009, and seismic data suggested it was significantly more powerful.