SEOUL, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- South Korean fighter jets on Tuesday conducted a live-fire drill in the northeastern region of the country after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired a missile over Japan.

President Moon Jae-in ordered the military to demonstrate its strong punishment capability against the DPRK, and four F-15K jetfighters made a sortie for the bomb-dropping exercise, according to the presidential Blue House.

The South Korean fighter jets dropped eight MK84 bombs on a target at the Taebaek Pilsung Firing Range in the country's northeastern Gangwon province.

The order followed the DPRK's launch of an unidentified missile that flew over the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido.

The DPRK missile, which was fired from an area near the capital Pyongyang, passed over the Japanese territory and landed in the Pacific Ocean, after a flight of about 2,500 km. It was lofted as high as 550 km.

According to local media reports, South Korea's military saw the missile as the DPRK's newly developed Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), which Pyongyang said in May it had successfully test-fired.

An hour after the DPRK's missile launch, Chung Eui-yong, top national security advisor to President Moon, chaired a National Security Council (NSC) meeting at the Blue House to discuss countermeasures against the ballistic missile provocation by the DPRK, senior presidential press secretary Yoon Young-chan told a press briefing.

The NSC meeting strongly condemned Pyongyang's ballistic missile launch, which violated the UN Security Council resolutions, in defiance of the international community's grave warnings, the press secretary said.

Yoon said President Moon took the DPRK provocation very seriously, adding that the South Korean military would maintain a full defense readiness against possible further provocations from the DPRK.