A Japanese official mistakenly announced the launch of a North Korean missile instead of sending an alert about a strong earthquake that hit western Japan on Saturday morning. An official at the transport ministry's western Osaka aviation bureau mistakenly e-mailed 87 airport offices that a North Korean missile had been launched, the ministry said. The official was trying to send a message to check on possible airport damage immediately after the 6.3-magnitude earthquake hit the western Hyogo prefecture, it said.

As neighboring nations kept a close eye on missile movements in North Korea, people in the country's capital began celebrating a series of April holidays, including the anniversary Thursday of their leader's appointment as head of the ruling Worker's Party.Bracing for what South Korea's foreign minister warned could be a test-fire of a medium-range missile, Seoul deployed three naval destroyers, an early warning surveillance aircraft and a land-based radar system, a Defense Ministry official said in Seoul, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department rules.

South Korea and the United States were on high alert for a North Korean missile test-launch on Thursday, as the isolated state celebrated the rule of the Kim dynasty and appeared to tone down rhetoric of impending war, reported Reuters.Despite recent threats to attack U.S.

The White House said Friday that North Korea has not demonstrated the ability to deploy nuclear missiles, downplaying an intelligence report from the day before. "North Korea has not demonstrated the capability to deploy a nuclear armed missile," spokesman Jay Carney said, while adding that "there's no question that this is a situation that requires the US to take necessary prudent measures and that is what we've done."