Hamagiri destroyer of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. File photoTOKYO, Jul 20 A maritime security patrol ship in Japan's southern prefecture of Okinawa mistakenly fired live rounds from an automatic cannon during an inspection, NHK reported. The incident occurred on Tuesday. The ship «Shimoji» was in the port of the island of Irabu in Okinawa Prefecture. On Tuesday morning, seven crew members carried out a preventive check of the automatic gun, during which they loaded it and brought it to a state of alert, when it was enough to press the start button from the control cabin to fire. After that, the captain, being sure that the gun was not loaded, carried out a training check of its work, during which one of the crew members pressed the start button in the control cabin. As a result, eight rounds of 20-mm caliber were fired towards the shore. There are no reports of casualties or damage, but there are traces of shrapnel on the security service vehicles parked in the port, some of the cars had broken windows. The maritime security authorities apologized and promised that this would not happen again.
