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North Korean trash balloons caught fire after landing on the rooftop of a residential building in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, on Wednesday. (Yonhap) |
The latest batch of trash-carrying balloons sent by North Korea made their way to South Korea more successfully this time, reportedly causing a fire and falling around the country’s most significant political buildings like the presidential office and the National Assembly.
The count of North Korean balloons launched Wednesday stood at around 500 as of Thursday morning, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, with about 480 of them falling within South Korea. No balloons were still in the air.
This means that roughly 96 percent of the balloons flown from the North have made it to South Korean territory. Based on the available JCS data, the arrival success rate during the last eight separate occasions the North flew balloons across the DMZ averaged just 33 percent.
While some of the balloons are equipped with a global positioning system device that tracks their location, their destinations are not controlled or manipulated, the JCS said.
In a first, a North Korean balloon landed on the grounds shared by the presidential office and the Defense Ministry in Yongsan, central Seoul, on Wednesday. Other refuse from a balloon was found near the library of the National Assembly on the same day in Yeouido, also in Seoul.
An object suspected to be a North Korean balloon caught fire after bursting on the rooftop of a residential building in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, at around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to fire authorities. No one was hurt as a result of the balloon bursting, with the cause of the fire under investigation.
The JCS says the most effective way to respond to the balloons is to wait for them to land before collecting the refuse. Attempting to take them down while they are still in the air could inflict more damage, especially once they reach residential areas.
The JCS added that none of the balloons analyzed to date seemed to contain incendiary or explosive materials. The balloons have contained mostly scraps of paper and plastic that were not deemed to pose safety hazards, according to the JCS analysis to date.
Wednesday marks the 10th time that North Korea sent trash-carrying balloons toward the South this year. The South Korean military has in response played anti-North Korean regime broadcasts from the loudspeakers along the border every day from Sunday.
