A missile launch by North Korea on Thursday morning caused fear and confusion in Japan after a government-run alert system warned residents that the projectile could fall on or close to the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

The emergency broadcasting system – J-Alert – told millions of people in Hokkaido to take immediate cover after the North test-fired what appeared to be a long-range missile.

The system issued the evacuation warning just before 8am local time, but lifted it soon after, saying it had “erroneously” predicted that the missile would fall near the island.

But Japan’s government later said the emergency evacuation warning it issued and later retracted was appropriate and had not been made in error.

“We did not correct the information issued by J-Alert,” the chief cabinet secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno, told a news conference.