After North Korea fired more than 20 missiles on Wednesday, at least one of which landed close to the sensitive sea border between the two countries, residents of a South Korean island hastened to underground bunkers. South Korea launched its own missiles in the same border region as a prompt response.
After threatening to use nuclear weapons to make the United States and South Korea “pay the most horrific price in history” for ongoing joint military exercises that it considers an invasion practice, North Korea launched the missiles just hours later. The White House asserted that the United States had no aggressive intentions toward North Korea and promised to cooperate with allies in order to deter North Korea’s nuclear aspirations.
The attack came when South Korea suffered the worst disaster in years
North Korea conducted its blitz of missile launches at a time when South Korea was the center of the world’s attention following the country’s worst disaster in years, the over 150 fatal crowd crush over Halloween weekend in Seoul.
According to South Korea’s military, North Korea launched at least 23 missiles off its eastern and western shores on Wednesday—17 in the morning and six in the afternoon. It said that all of the weapons were either suspected surface-to-air missiles or short-range ballistic missiles. The South Korean military reported that on Wednesday, North Korea launched roughly 100 artillery projectiles into the eastern marine buffer zone that the two Koreas established in 2018 to ease tensions.
A record 23 missiles were fired
According to some observers, North Korea conducted a record 23 missile launches, which is a record amount of daily weapons testing. Before it came to rest 104 miles to the northwest of Ulleung island in South Korea, one of the ballistic missiles was heading there. Following that, the island received an air-raid alert from South Korea’s military, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in that country. Pictures of island residents relocating to subterranean bunkers were published by South Korean media.
The South Korean military claimed to have dropped the air-raid alert hours later. Until Thursday morning, several flight routes over South Korea’s eastern waters will be closed, according to the transportation ministry.
The missile that was aimed toward Ulleung landed 16 miles from the maritime border of Korea. It touched down in international waters near South Korea’s east coast. Since the peninsula was politically divided in 1948, a North Korean missile had never before landed so close to the maritime boundary, according to South Korea’s military.
“This is very unprecedented and we will never tolerate it,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
Four persons were killed when North Korea bombarded a strategic South Korean island off the western coast of the peninsula in 2010. Ballistic missiles, whose launches or tests are prohibited by numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions, were not deployed; instead, artillery rockets were.
Later on Wednesday, in retaliation for North Korea’s conduct, South Korean fighter aircraft fired three air-to-surface, precision-guided missiles close to the eastern maritime boundary. Similar to the first North Korean missile, the South Korean military claimed the rockets fell in international seas 16 miles north of the maritime border.
“It was done to threaten South Korea”
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, stated that “North Korea firing missiles in a way that sets off air-raid sirens appears intended to threaten South Koreans to pressure their government to change policy,” Although North Korea’s growing military might and tests are concerning, making concessions in exchange for alliance participation or nuclear recognition will only make things worse.
Three of the weapons were identified by South Korea as “short-range ballistic missiles” launched from the eastern coastal town of Wonsan in the North. Such weapons are intended to attack important South Korean infrastructure, such as American military installations there.
According to North Korea, its latest nuclear and missile tests were a message to Washington and Seoul on their joint military exercises, which included this week’s maneuvers involving roughly 240 warplanes.
Officials from the United States and South Korea have consistently insisted that their military exercises are defensive in nature and that they have no plans to invade North Korea.