North Korea’s brisk missile testing program has scored at least one casualty: several buildings in the city of Tokchon.
We now know that the April 28 missile test of a Hwasong-12 ended in disaster as the missile malfunctioned early in flight, plunging down into an industrial or agricultural part of the city. Satellite imagery of the impact area confirms buildings in the area were damaged by some form of explosion.
The accident was reported yesterday by The Diplomat, and the incident and missile impact location was relayed by a U.S. government source to Diplomat Senior Editor Ankit Panda. Panda and Dave Schmerler, a research associate with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, studied open source information on the launch to locate evidence on the ground of the wayward missile explosion.