Japan’s Self Defense Forces deployed a Patriot missile launcher in downtown Tokyo over the weekend, as North Korea reportedly gears up for a missile launch.

The  launcher, deployed among a maze of high-rise office buildings and parked outside the Ministry of Defense headquarters, will function as a last-ditch defense should a missile head towards Japan’s capital.

The announcement last week of suspicious activity at North Korea’s Sonhae Satellite Launching Station prompted Japanese officials to move to a higher state of defense preparedness. The two countries are only 300 miles apart, separated by the Sea of Japan, and North Korea has repeated threatened Japan over the years with military action.

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