SEOUL, South Korea — Air raid sirens sounded loud in South Korea after the North fired about a dozen missiles in its direction this Wednesday, at least one of which landed near the rivals’ tense maritime border.
The launch came hours after North Korea threatened to use nuclear weapons to make the US and South Korea “pay the most terrible price in history” as it ramped up its fiery rhetoric targeting ongoing large-scale military exercises between its rivals.
South Korea’s military said North Korea fired more than 10 missiles of various types off its east and west coasts.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement on Wednesday that it had detected three short-range ballistic missiles fired at the northeastern coastal city of Wonsan. One of the missiles landed 26 kilometers (16 mi) from the rivals’ maritime borders.
The landing site is in international waters, but still far south of the extension of national borders. South Korea’s military said it was the first time a North Korean missile had landed so close to the maritime border since the countries split in 1948.
In 2010, North Korea fired artillery shells at a front South Korean island and reportedly torpedoed a South Korean navy ship, both off the peninsula’s west coast, killing a total of 50 people.
“This is very unprecedented and we will never tolerate it,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a separate statement.
The North Korean missile’s landing site is also 167 kilometers (104 miles) northwest of South Korea’s Ulleung Island, where the airstrike was later announced.