'Danger warning': Guam residents wake to emergency radio broadcast amid nuclear attack fears
Anxious Guam residents were woken in the middle of the night after two local radio stations accidentally broadcast a “civil danger warning” sparking fears of a North Korean nuclear attack.
According to reports, authorities said the warning message was broadcast due to “human error” just after midnight by radio stations KTWG and KSTO.
“A broadcast station or cable system has issued a civil danger warning for the following countries/areas: Guam at 12:25 am, on Aug. 15, 2017, effective until 12:40 a.m. Message from KTWGKSTO,” the broadcast said The Sun reported.
The blunder comes merely days after officials released a document warning residents "how to prepare for an imminent missile threat."
In the document listening to the radio is cited as one of the measures to be taken during such an event.
A statement from the Guam Homeland Security and Civil Defence office said the "unauthorised test was not connected to any emergency, threat or warning" and it was working to ensure "human error will not occur again".
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Tensions have been mounting since North Korea last month conducted two intercontinental ballistic missile tests, which appeared to bring much of the US within range.
Guam's citizens have to date been stoic through the developing crisis, with many saying they fear the looming typhoon season more than aggression from North Korea which has threatened the island several times in recent years.
"It doesn’t change the way I feel. At the height of the threats, I was not worried. I have faith in the Lord," 58-year-old accountant Adoracion Manibusan said after Pyongyang took a step back from the brink.
"Besides, there is really nothing we can do if we get attacked. There’s no place to hide," she said.
However, Lieutenant governor Ray Tonorio said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appeared to have "calmed down" some of his rhetoric.
"We're happy that he has taken a look at their plans and will be holding off on, at least it appears, the imminent threats to Guam," he said.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday warned North Korea against threatening Guam and said on Friday that the US military was "locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely."
"At this point, our government is operating, our tourism is continuing to grow, there have been no major changes in our forecast."
Despite the cooler language from North Korea, Tonorio said there was no change to the threat level in Guam, which is home to two large US military installations and more than 6000 military personnel.
"I think the rhetoric is one thing but if we have any belief, as a country or as an island, that there is going to be a threat, we are going to be prepared. We are going to be ready for it," he said.
