Earthquake strikes Guam hours after Kim Jong-un threats

A magnitude 5.2 earthquake has struck Guam just a day after Kim Jong-un promised to target a US military base on the island.

The US Geological Survey says the earthquake hit at 8am on Wednesday and that the epicenter was 51.7 miles (83.4km) southeast of Inarajan Village, a community of about 2,300 people.

The earthquake had a depth of 6 miles (10km) and comes amid a period of intense hostility on the Korean peninsula.

Tuesday’s aggressive missile launch (pictured) sends a clear message of defiance as Washington and Seoul conduct war games nearby

A B-52 Stratofortress bomber sits on the tarmac at Andersen Air Force Base after it landed on the Pacific US territory of Guam (file image)

A B-52 Stratofortress bomber sits on the tarmac at Andersen Air Force Base after it landed on the Pacific US territory of Guam (file image)

Kim Jong-un views in person (shown) the launch of North Korea's latest long-range ballistic missile test which flew 1,700 miles over Japan

Kim Jong-un views in person (shown) the launch of North Korea’s latest long-range ballistic missile test which flew 1,700 miles over Japan

U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump depart the White House in Washington, U.S., on their way to view storm damage in Texas

U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump depart the White House in Washington, U.S., on their way to view storm damage in Texas

North Korea has repeatedly threatened to launch ballistic missiles into waters near Guam where the US has a military base. 

Kim Jong-un was there in person to oversee the launch of North Korea’s latest long-range ballistic missile test which flew 1,700 miles over Japan.

The dictator was pictured laughing with top officials as the Hwasong-12 was unleashed on Tuesday and later warned the launch was a mere ‘curtain raiser’.

State media boasted that the test was timed to mark the 107th anniversary of the ‘disgraceful’ Japan-Korea treaty of 1910, under which Tokyo colonised the Korean peninsula.

It was part of ‘a bold plan to make the cruel Japanese islanders insensible on bloody August 29’, the KCNA agency said.

This morning, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley warned America will not allow North Korea’s lawlessness to continue adding it is time for Pyongyang to recognise the ‘danger they are putting themselves in’ as the world is united against them. 

The Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the mouthpiece of the North’s ruling party, on Wednesday carried more than 20 pictures of the launch near Pyongyang, one showing Kim smiling broadly at a desk with a map of the Northwest Pacific, surrounded by aides.

The dictator was pictured laughing with top officials as the Hwasong-12 was unleashed on Tuesday and later warned the launch was a mere 'curtain raiser'

The dictator was pictured laughing with top officials as the Hwasong-12 was unleashed on Tuesday and later warned the launch was a mere ‘curtain raiser’

Another showed him gazing upwards as the missile rose into the air.

The official Korean Central News Agency cited Kim as saying that ‘more ballistic rocket launching drills with the Pacific as a target in the future’ were necessary.

Tuesday’s launch was a ‘meaningful prelude to containing Guam, advanced base of invasion’, he said, and a ‘curtain-raiser’ for the North’s ‘resolute countermeasures’ against ongoing US-South Korean military exercises which the North regards as a rehearsal for invasion.

Wednesday’s statement was the first time the North has acknowledged sending a missile over Japan’s main islands. 

Two of its rockets previously did so, in 1998 and 2009, but on both occasions it claimed they were space launch vehicles. 

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