Tokyo has held its first missile evacuation drill with volunteers taking cover in subway stations and other underground spaces that would double as shelters in the event of a North Korean missile strike.
Monday's choreographed evacuations at a fair ground and park ringing the Tokyo Dome baseball stadium involved about300 volunteers.
Small groups of protesters scuffled with police as they demonstrated against what they criticised as a war game that fanned public fear.
While hope grows that North Korea's participation in next month's Winter Olympics in South Korea may help defuse tension in the region, Japan is escalating efforts to prepare its citizens for a possible war.
Tokyo believes the threat posed by Pyongyang's ballistic missile and nuclear weapons development is deepening.
"A missile from North Korea would arrive in less than 10 minutes and the first alert would come about three minutes after launch, which gives us only around five minutes to find shelter," Hiroyuku Suenaga, a Japanese government official, told volunteers after the Tokyo exercise.
North Korea conducted its most recent and biggest nuclear bomb test in September and has tested dozens of ballistic missiles. The latest missile test in November reached an altitude of about 4,475km and flew 950km, passing over Japan before splashing into waters in Japan's exclusive economic zone.
Amid public concern over the possibility of more missile launches, Japanese public broadcaster NHK issued a false launch alarm urging people to take shelter six days ago.
Participants, residents and office workers evacuate during a drill under assumption that a ballistic missile launched in Bunyo Ward, Tokyo on 22 January, 2018. Source: AAP
"I am not that worried about North Korea, if something happened that would be frightening," said Hidenobu Kondo, one of the volunteer evacuees. However, the 50-year-old company employee said the drill would not be of much use in the event of real attack.
"If I was at work it might be easy to evacuate, but If I was outside somewhere it would be more difficult."
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