Japan city mistakenly tweets North Korean missile launch

TOKYO - Agence France-Presse

A Japanese soldier walks past Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missile launchers (back R) deployed at the Defence Ministry in Tokyo on April 10, 2013. Japan is on full alert ahead of an expected mid-range missile launch by North Korea, its defence minister said on April 10, as the UN chief warned of a potentially "uncontrollable" situation. AFP photo

Officials in the Japanese city of Yokohama were left red-faced on Wednesday after mistakenly announcing the launch of a North Korean missile to 40,000 followers on Twitter.

The city, south of Tokyo, prematurely fired its Tweet just before noon (0300 GMT), announcing "North Korea has launched a missile" with blank spaces to indicate the exact time.
 
"We received a call from one of our followers who had noticed the mistake. We had the Tweet ready and waiting, but for an unknown reason it was dispatched erroneously," said a city official.
 
The city retracted the Tweet about 20 minutes later and apologised to followers of @yokohama_saigai, the official said.
 
Japan is on full alert ahead of an expected mid-range missile launch by North Korea, with Patriot missiles stationed in its capital to protect the 30 million people who live there.
 
In addition to PAC-3 batteries, Aegis destroyers equipped with sea-based interceptor missiles have been deployed in the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
 
Twitter is wildly popular in Japan, where the ideograph and pictograph-based language is well-suited to the 140 character limit, allowing much more information to be imparted than alphabetic languages like English.