North Korea’s missile launch to celebrate country’s founder was a catastrophic failure

South Korean and U.S. military officials have said that North Korea tried and failed to test fire an intermediate-range Musudan missile on April 15.

North Korea attempted to test fire the missile in celebration of the birthday of the founder of the nation, Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of current ruler Kim Jong Un. The event is marked each year as a high holiday in the nation and often marked with displays of military muscle.

A day before the attempted test, reports pointed out that North Korea had deployed two medium-range ballistic missiles in the region and had been preparing for the first-ever flight of the missile, that was believed to be capable of striking U.S. bases in the Pacific island of Guam.

However, on April 15, South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said in a statement, “The North appears to have attempted a missile test near its east coast early Friday morning but it appears to have failed.”

While the statement did not identify the type of missile that was tested unsuccessfully, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed military official as saying it was a Musudan, which was unveiled at a military parade inPyongyang in October 2010

In its report, Yonhap further quoted a senior Seoul intelligence official who said, “The missile disappeared from surveillance radar a few seconds after launch and is believed to have exploded midair.”

Further, reports of senior U.S. defence officials claiming to have detected and tracked the failed North Korean missile launch appeared post the launch. “We assess that the launch failed. We are monitoring and continuing to assess the situation,” he said.

Meanwhile, China too sharply condemned the operation by North Korea and its official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary, “The firing of a mid-range ballistic missile on Friday by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea(DPRK), though failed, marks the latest in a string of sabre-rattling that, if unchecked, will lead the country to nowhere. Nuclear weapons will not make Pyongyang safer. On the contrary, its costly military endeavours will keep on suffocating its economy.”

Matters in the Korean Peninsula became grave after North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January 2016, in defiance of the United Nations rules. Responding to several infuriated nations, UN imposed heavy sanctions onNorth Korea in reaction to the test. Followed by which, Kim Jung Un’s regime further launched a long-range missile in February. To make matters worse in the troubled Korean peninsula, North Korea ordered the military to deploy the country’s nuclear warheads on standby.

In March 2016, Jong Un had said that his country would soon test a nuclear warhead and ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, with the country’s official news agency even releasing photos of the leader along with miniature nuclear device.

Existing UN resolutions forbid North Korea from the use of any ballistic missile-related technology.

North Korea is now reportedly gearing up for a rare and much-hyped ruling party congress next month.