The sound of explosions from North Korea just hours after the US and South Korea launched a round of war games in Korean waters sent residents and journalists on a front-line island scrambling for cover yesterday.
Faint sounds of explosions — possibly artillery fire — were heard several times, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said. No rounds fell in the South’s territory, including Yeonpyeong Island, military officials said, but the ministry later warned journalists to leave the island because the situation was “bad.”
Many Yeonpyeong residents evacuated earlier said they did not want to return.
PHOTO: AFP
MISSILES
Meanwhile, North Korea has placed surface-to-surface missiles on launch pads in the Yellow Sea, Yonhap news agency reported yesterday, days after it shelled Yeonpyeong, killing four people and wounding 18 others.
The North had moved surface-to-air SA-2 missiles to frontline areas on the west coast, aiming them at South Korean fighter jets flying near the western sea border, Yonhap said, citing an unidentified South Korean government source.
South Korean defense officials and the joint chiefs said they could not comment on the Yonhap report.
However, an official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North already deploys anti-ship missiles on its west coast bases.
The previously planned joint war games launched yesterday by the US and South Korea were sure to heighten the tensions.
NAVAL DRILLS
At least 11 ships from both countries entered the exercise zone yesterday, an official with South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.
The nuclear-powered carrier USS George Washington, which carries 75 warplanes and has a crew of more than 6,000, has joined the exercises and will be accompanied by at least four other US warships, an official from US Forces Korea told Reuters.
Six South Korean warships, including an AEGIS-class destroyer, two destroyers and frigates, as well as anti-submarine aircraft were joining the drill, the military in Seoul said.
The drill will also involve a high-flying US J-STARS (joint surveillance and target attack system) surveillance aircraft to monitor the North’s military moves, the South’s Yonhap news agency reported
Yonhap reported the exercises were being held far south of the disputed area where Tuesday’s artillery firing took place.
Washington insists the drills were planned well before Tuesday’s attack. The exercise is one of a series announced in May, after a Seoul-led multinational investigation found overwhelming evidence that a North Korean torpedo had sunk a South Korean warship in March.
NORTHERN BOMBAST
Nevertheless, North Korea expressed outrage.
“We will launch merciless countermilitary strikes against any provocative moves that infringe upon our country’s territorial waters,” the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in an editorial carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KNCA).
“A club is the best thing for a mad dog,” KCNA said of the US-South Korean naval drill, echoing a comment made about its own regime by a South Korean newspaper.
“Aggressors will feel the taste of it ... We are ready to respond even to something stronger than anti-submarine ships,” the agency said.
Yesterday’s burst of artillery fire in North Korea was the second in three days.
People on the island were ordered into bunkers for 40 minutes and authorities briefly ordered the remaining residents to evacuate, before recalling the order.
“We got the report that North Korea’s artillery batteries were in the ‘ready-to fire’ posture,” police chief Choi Du-gyu said. “So we decided to order residents to evacuate to keep them safe.”
A Defense Ministry announcement yesterday said journalists “must” leave Yeonpyeong, but a ministry official later said the island was not necessarily off limits.
Another ministry official said that a ship would be arranged to evacuate journalists, and that other safety measures would be arranged for remaining islanders, rescue workers and local officials. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity, citing agency rules.
About 380 people, including 28 islanders (out of a normal population of 1,500) and 190 journalists, remain on the island, according to Incheon City Government that governs the island.
Meanwhile, life went on as normal in the sunny and cold capital, Seoul. In the chic shopping district of Myeondong, tens of thousands jammed the streets looking for bargains and drinking coffee at cafes. There has been no disruption of air and shipping routes.
Also in Seoul, the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) called for incentives to encourage settlement on five islands near North Korea.
SOUTHERN POLITICS
“If [we are] pushed back from Yeonpyeong and the other four islands, the entire southern half of the Korean Peninsula will also be pushed back,” GNP floor leader Kim Moo-sung said.
Kim said a bill to be submitted to parliament today would provide further state aid for modernized housing, school fees and supplements to farmers’ and fishermen’s incomes.
“We must defend the five islands with everything we’ve got,” he said in comments quoted by Yonhap. “The country has a duty to protect the residents so that they may be able to safely make a living by fishing.”
While the majority of Yeonpyeong Island’s residents are now being sheltered on the mainland, hundreds of people have also fled other South Korean border islands for fear of attack.
Some 20 activists rallied outside a naval base at Pyeongtaek to protest against the naval exercise.
One of their banners read: “Stop the Korea-US drill that causes vicious cycle of retaliation and confrontation!”
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