Over 1,500 reports of North Korea’s trash balloons submitted in 2024
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South Korean officials clean up the contents of a trash-carrying balloon sent by North Korea after it landed on a street in Seoul on July 24.
PHOTO: AFP
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SEOUL - The South Korean authorities have received 1,567 reports of trash-carrying balloons sent by North Korea in 2024, according to National Fire Agency data revealed Aug 15.
Over 10,000 firefighters and 2,400 fire engines have been dispatched to deal with the totalitarian communist state’s balloons from Jan 1 to Aug 13, according to the NFA data submitted to Representative Yang Bu-nam of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea.
Amid the currently icy inter-Korean relations, North Korea has been floating balloons filled with waste in response to balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets
“Reports of North Korea’s trash-carrying balloons have been received not only in the areas like the capital region, which is close to (North Korea), but also in other regions, disrupting the daily lives of the people. The government must come up with practical measures, such as stopping the anti-Pyongyang leaflets from being sent,” Mr Yang said.
Mr Yang’s report showed that 71.9 per cent of the reports – 1,126 – submitted to the 119 emergency service hotline were from Seoul, the nation’s capital, which sits 23km away from the southernmost part of the Military Demarcation Line dividing the two Koreas.
Residents living in the northern part of Gyeonggi province – which surrounds Seoul and includes regions closest to the border – reported 162 cases of trash-carrying balloons, while those in the southern part of the province reported 151 cases. Incheon city, Gangwon and North Chungcheong provinces reported 56, 48 and 16 cases respectively.
While most of the balloons fell in the regions close to North Korea, a few of them fell in southern regions as well, as residents of the south-eastern city of Ulsan, North Gyeongsang province and south-western South Jeolla province reported one, four and two cases of waste-carrying balloons, respectively.
The authorities in a town in Yeongyang-gun, North Gyeongsang province, 216km from the inter-Korean border, received a report of a North Korea-sent balloon on June 2. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
