Earlier on Wednesday, ROK Marines fired warning shots after a DPRK shell landed near the sea border.
An ROK Defense Ministry official said the first rounds of shells fired by the DPRK landed in the waters off Yeonpyeong Island, but it was not clear whether it was inside the ROK’s territorial waters.
Yonhap said the ROK fired back with its artillery. “Three shots were heard. One shell landed near the Northern Limit Line (NLL),” Yonhap quoted a military official as saying.
Yeonpyeong Island straddles the contested NLL and was the site of a deadly attack in 2010, the first assault on a civilian area since the Korean War (1950-1953).
An unidentified government official quoted by Yonhap said: “One shot (from the DRPK) crossed the NLL, but I don‘t think it’s something serious”.
Explaining why the ROK took an hour to respond, a defence official said: “We could not get visual confirmation about where the DPRK‘s shells landed, and we needed to use equipment to assess where they landed.”Where ROK fired from was not told by the officials.
After the initial exchange of fire, an ROK Defense Ministry spokesman said: “The situation is now stable. After we fired back, there was no further response from the DRPK. We are still on alert.”
Fishing boats were called back to port and people were evacuated to shelters.
The boundary line was the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999, 2002 and November 2009. In November, the DPRK shelled Yeonpyeong, killing four people from the ROK, two of them civilians.
(아주경제 송지영 기자)
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