Just hours after North Korea fired at least three missiles including a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM over Japan, authorities in Tokyo urged residents to seek shelter.

The Japanese government issued evacuation alerts and temporarily halt trains following Thursday’s launches, which are the latest in a series of missile tests conducted by Pyongyang amid rising tensions in the region. 

Thursday’s launches came a day after North Korea fired more than 20 missiles, the most it has fired in a single day ever. One of the missiles fired Wednesday anded near South Korea’s territorial waters.

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Seoul responded by firing three missiles of its own.

The recent North Korean ballistic missile launches come as the US and South Korea start their largest-ever joint air drills, which Pyongyang has slammed as “aggressive and provocative.”

Earlier this year, Japan started setting up facilities to protect residents from blasts in potential ballistic missile attacks. The government started a survey to select public facilities that can be used as designated shelters.

In May, the Tokyo government designated 109 facilities, including Tokyo Metro stations, as part of its temporary emergency initiative.

Initially, Tokyo said Thursday that the missile flew over Japan. However, Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada later said it did “not cross the Japanese archipelago, but disappeared over the Sea of Japan.”

Japan’s PM Fumio Kishida condemned North Korea’s “repeated missile launches,” calling them an “outrage”.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong and US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said the launches were “deplorable, immoral.”

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North Korea last flew a missile over Japan in October which Pyongyang described as a test of a new intermediate-range ballistic missile. Experts said at the time that the missile launched by the reclusive country potentially would be capable of reaching Guam, a major US military hub in the Pacific.