A suspected North Korean ballistic missile trail is seen stretching across the sky over the Yellow Sea on Wednesday. The Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea had launched an unidentified ballistic missile into the East Sea, but it is presumed to have failed. (Yonhap)

The presidential office convened a security situation assessment meeting on Wednesday to discuss North Korea's latest ballistic missile launch.

Yin Sung-hwan, the second deputy national security adviser, presided over the meeting shortly after North Korea fired a ballistic missile from the Pyongyang region toward the East Sea at around 5:30 a.m., according to sources familiar with the matter.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the launch apparently failed and an in-depth analysis is under way. Sources said the North appears to have test-fired a hypersonic missile, though the test ended in failure after the missile flew about 250 kilometers.

The missile launch came after the North slammed the US aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt's port call at South Korea and warned of taking "overwhelming and new" deterrence measures against what it called a "provocative act."

It also came after the North launched more than 250 trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea overnight, the JCS said, marking the sixth launch of such balloons since late last month. (Yonhap)