DHAKA: South Korea’s military said that North Korea has test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine but it failed in its initial flight stage.

It said that the missile was launched in waters east of the Korean peninsula - the latest in a recent series of tests, BBC reports on Saturday (July 9).

It comes less than three months after a previous attempt to launch a missile from a submarine failed.

North Korea, believed to be developing nuclear weapons, is banned by the UN from any use of ballistic missiles.

‘The SLBM (submarine-launched ballistic missile) was ejected from the submarine normally, but is estimated the initial flight was unsuccessful,’ the South Korean military said in a statement.

‘Our military strongly denounces such provocative acts by North Korea,’ it added.

The missile had been launched at about 11:30 local time (02:30 GMT) off North Korea’s port of Sinpo.

BDST: 1505 HRS, JUL 09, 2016
SAS/RR