Nowhere to hide: N Korean missiles spur anxiety in Hokkaido fishing town

So, you don't think the rhetoric and propaganda being spouted by the local a federal governments have anything to do with this old fella's paranoia? The reality is, if the DPRK is going to send a missile to mainland Japan, the are not gonna bother targeting flipping Hokkaido. It will be aimed at Tokyo!

What an absolutely ridiculous point of view.  Like Kim is going to target saomne remote village in Hokkaido.  Abe really knows his sheep well.

Erimo is basically nothing surrounded by a lot of nothing. The odds of a rocket (not warhead) hitting anything there are basically zero. If this guy thinks NK will actually conduct a nuke test anywhere near Japanese waters, he's exactly the kind of sucker Abe is looking for.

2 points re this article -

1st - as others indicated, a total beat up pre-election to scare people into voting for the saviour Abe. As if that tiny outpost in Hokkaido is under any threat at all from NK nuclear missiles - Geeeezz!

2nd - as an old surfer - that looks like a nice little set rolling in in the top pic.

Scare tactics are working folks...

Shouldn’t the headline read, Nowhere to hide from LDP propaganda?

as an old surfer - that looks like a nice little set rolling in in the top pic.

The Pacific Coast of Hokkaido has quite a few nice surfing spots. And no radiation!

This whole article is nothing other than an LDP electioneering propaganda piece.

"The radiation would make all the fish inedible," said Narita, the elderly fisherman. "Like in Fukushima, we couldn't do our jobs."

but I thought the radiation in Fukushima was contained within the harbour. Hmm?

Hokkaido? a target? not hardly in fact they haven't even been mentioned by NK as a target.  Now other parts of Japan have. I agree that Japan should have shot it down regardless of what NK thought, besides what is the purpose of paying the US or having their forces in our lands if they don't do what they get paid to do, protect Japan. IT's time the US earned their fair share of what Japan pays for.

A 70 year old living in a proxy village is worried about a Nuclear Strike. Yet his vote is worth at least 3 times my wife's, being a long term visitor, actually permanent resident denied voting rights I probably should not care about him or Japan.

2nd - as an old surfer - that looks like a nice little set rolling in in the top pic.

Browny, as someone who still surfs a lot, it's one of the FIRST things I noticed about the pic! Old habits, n all of that....

holymoly, that must be the worst piece of LDP propaganda piece I read in the past weeks.

Sheep

Terrorism is violence or the threat of violence directed against civilians for the purpose of creating intense fear, which the terrorist hopes to exploit to attain political or ideological goals.

Terrorism as used by N. Korea is intended to intimidate and create mayhem, to inspire terror. It's terrorism when a suicide bomber blows himself up in a crowded bus, in that the violence is directed not against soldiers on a battlefield but against civilians going about their everyday lives. Remember to do nothing to prevent Evil is to allow it to intimidate Good’s existence !

Damn that was painful to read & painful reading some of these peoples "thoughts"

It's exactly because of Abe's hawkish  & very pro-US approach, the probability of N. Korea targeting Japan with missiles increases.

The citizens have fallen for the LDP propaganda.

This is a top story? This is nothing more than fear mongering disguised as journalism.

No, a North Korean nuclear bomb will not fall on either that desolate place or Tokyo any time soon. A followup story should be about how worried people in Tokyo are about North Korean nukes. There is nowhere to hide in Tokyo as well as in nowhere land in Hokkaido. Are Tokyo people worried? In fact, are the people in nowhere land Hokkaido worried as this rustic photogenic guy in the photo? This is "human interest" at it's worst. No surreys, no statistics. Nothing like professional reportage. Maybe someone told that guy to be worried and he would get his picture in the paper.

Hey, I live in the Golden Crescent between Tokyo and Osaka. Ask me if I'm worried and about what. You don't even to put my picture in the paper.

Nice photograph by the way.

Tokyo is the target, not the sleepy little fishing village of Erimo.

Nowhere to hide but I'm still gonna be hitting the best powder snow in the world this winter and still planning on moving around that area next year.

No need to worry unless the US military actually isn't here to defend Japan.

The first thing these people will know about a nuclear warhead dropping on Japan will be all the Tokyoites moving into their town.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called North Korea's escalating threats -- it also conducted a sixth nuclear test last month -- a "national crisis" that only he can lead Japan through.

Really? What exactly is he going to do except take orders from the US which is exactly what ANY PM is going to do??

If anything, Japan has been too passive, said 23-year-old Ryosuke Kinoshita, who supports Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

"Next time they launch one, I'd almost like to see us fire one back," he said. "We can't live in peace and safety."

Ryosuke, have you enlisted in the SDF? Are you ready to fight? If not, then keep your mouth shut.

Local fishermen are nervous about North Korea's warning that it might conduct a hydrogen bomb test over the Pacific, which they worry would contaminate the water like the Fukushima nuclear disaster did in 2011.

And How pray tell is Abe going to stop them from doing that?

The radiation would make all the fish inedible," said Narita, the elderly fisherman. "Like in Fukushima, we couldn't do our jobs."

Well then don't vote LDP. They are pro nuke energy, which will give you radiation.

Being a fisherman is one of the most dangerous jobs you can do, yet these people don't seem anxious that their boat might be capsized by a big wave any time they are out fishing, something that is millions of times more likely to happen than being hit by a Korean missile. Abe's constant scaremongering has clearly worked if they are typical examples.