North and South Korea ‘trade artillery fire in border zone’

“Our military in response launched dozens of rounds of 155mm shells towards the site from which the North Korean military launched the rocket artillery”, the ministry said in a statement.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry said surveillance equipment had detected the trajectories of suspected North Korean rockets and that it was investigating whether the North had fired at South Korea.

“Using the pretext that our forces fired one shell to the south, which is not true, it made reckless moves by firing 36 shells at our military posts”, said the statement, published in Korean by the North’s state media.

“Our military has stepped up monitoring and is closely watching North Korean military movements”, defence ministry said.

The two sides have exchanged fire recently at sensitive points.

On Monday, North Korea pumped its own propaganda broadcasts over the border, the same day South Korea started military exercises with the United States and other countries. Pyongyang says it views the drills as a prelude to an invasion.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye urged Pyongyang to “wake up” from the delusion that it could maintain its government with provocation and threats.

There were no reports of casualties, and North Korea didn’t respond militarily to South Korea’s artillery barrage.

In November 2010, North Korea shelled an island near the countries’ disputed maritime border, killing two South Korean marines.

In the nearby border city of Paju, residents were asked to stay home. South Korean residents in the area were ordered to evacuate, according to Yonhap.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that a total of about 2,000 residents along the border were evacuated.

While the Koreas regularly exchange hostile rhetoric, it is also not unusual for fighting to occasionally erupt. It threatened over the weekend to blow up the South Korean speakers and also warned of “indiscriminate strikes”. South Korea returned fire, but no casualties were reported.

They also traded fire in October 2014. In 1983, a bombing linked to Pyongyang killed 17 high-level South Korean officials on a visit to Myanmar. The land mine explosions resulted in one soldier losing both legs and another soldier one leg.

This story corrects the name of the island to Ganghwa.