"The UK condemns North Korea's launch of an unprecedented number of missiles," junior foreign minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan said in a statement after Wednesday's launch.

Seoul's military said it was the first time since the peninsula was divided at the end of Korean War hostilities in 1953 that a North Korean missile had landed so close to the South's territorial waters.

Trevelyan said this "demonstrates North Korea's reckless actions".

The minister urged Pyongyang to "immediately stop all activity that violates UN Security Council Resolutions".