A missile fired on Friday by North Korea had sufficient range to reach the United States mainland, and was capable of flying as far as 15,000 km (9,320 miles), Japan's defence minister, Yasukazu Hamada, said.
The projectile, in the class of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), reached an altitude of 6,000 km (3,730 miles), covering a range of 1,000 km (622 miles) on a lofted trajectory, Hirokazu Matsuno, the chief cabinet secretary, had said earlier.
It landed about 200 km (124 miles) west of Oshima-Oshima island in the northern prefecture of Hokkaido.
(Reporting by Tokyo newsroom; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
