According to Japanese news agency Kyodo News and public broadcaster NHK on August 22, North Korea notified the Japan Coast Guard that Pyongyang's rocket would fly over three areas -- the West Sea, the East China Sea, and the Pacific, east of the Philippines.
On May 31, Seoul and other South Korean cities were woken up by sirens, and emergency warnings were sent out through smartphones after the South Korean military detected a projectile that was fired by North Korea at 6:27 a.m. (2127 GMT). Without disclosing the source of the threat, the text-based emergency notification urged citizens to take shelter at designated bomb shelters or evacuate to a safe area, making people very confused and extremely worried.
The projectile flew southwards from Dongchang-ri some 110 kilometers (68 miles) northwest of Pyongyang over Baekryeong Island, a South Korean island located near the Northern Limit Line. The defense ministry has identified and salvaged the remains of the crashed rocket in the sea some 200 kilometers west of Eocheong Island, located some 190 kilometers southwest of Seoul.
North Korea immediately admitted that its attempt to fire a spy satellite into orbit failed. Pyongyang's state news agency reported on May 31 that the new satellite-carrying rocket managed to separate the first-stage booster but the second-stage booster failed to ignite and crashed into the West Sea, also known as the Yellow Sea.
The satellite that crashed into the West Sea was a spy satellite designed to monitor the military activities of the United States and its allies in real time, according to the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA).
