A US Navy aircraft carrier group is steaming to North Korea in a show of force after Kim's most worrying rocket launch yet.

The hermit regime test-fired a nuclear capable ballistic missile farther than ever before, prompting air raid warnings in Japan as it flew overhead.

The rocket flew 2,800 miles – far enough to hit US bases in Guam – before splashing into the Pacific Ocean.

It was the fifth missile test ordered by the rogue state's tyrannical ruler Kim Jong-un in recent days.

South Korea and the United States responded with a volley of missiles and dummy bombing runs from jets in joint drills.

And today the USS Ronald Reagan was sailing back to waters east of South Korea, said Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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The carrier and its support ships were part of drills last week with South Korea and Japan.

It is returning to demonstrate the allies' "firm will to counter the North's continued provocations and threats", Seoul said.

It comes after an exploding South Korean rocket sparked panic in the coastal city of Gangneung last night.

Residents feared they were under attack from the North as an orange fireball lit up the night sky.

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Hours later the South Korean military admitted one of its Hyunmoo-2  missiles failed shortly after launch and crashed.

Its warhead did not explode and there were no casualties, it added.

The last time Pyongyang fired a missile over Japan was in 2017, at the height of a period of "fire and fury".

During the latest test – Pyongyang's fifth launch in a week – Japan ordered its citizens to evacuate buildings or seek refuge underground.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the test appeared to have been of an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) launched from North Korea's Jagang Province.

North Korea has conducted several recent tests from there, including multiple missiles that it said were "hypersonic".

'Reckless'

The missile may have been the Hwasong-12, which North Korea unveiled in 2017 as part of a plan to strike US military bases in Guam, said Kim Dong-yup, a former South Korea Navy officer.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol called it a "provocation" and vowed a "stern response".

The US and South Korea put on a show of strength, each launching two ATACMS short-range ballistic missiles into the Yellow Sea.

The two countries' warplanes also practised precision bombing a target in the sea.

US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned North Korea's test in the "strongest terms”.

The European Union called it a "reckless and deliberately provocative action" while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was a violation of Security Council resolutions.

Decades of US-led sanctions have not stemmed North Korea's increasingly sophisticated missile and nuclear bomb programs.

Kim Jong-un is preparing to detonate several warheads in the first A-bomb tests for five years, satellite pics suggest.

The despot has shown no interest in returning to the failed path of diplomacy he pursued with Donald Trump.

His powerful sister rejected South Korea's offer of an economic boost in exchange for the North giving up nuclear weapons.

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Kim Yo-jong said the country will "never deal" with an "audacious" initiative.

Such a plan was ignorant and "the height of folly far from realisation", she said.

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