North Korean trash balloon lands on South Korean presidential compound
Global News
North Korea’s latest balloon launches came days after South Korea boosted its broadcasts of K-pop songs and propaganda messages across the two countries' heavily armed border.
Trash carried by at least one North Korean balloon fell on the South Korean presidential compound on Wednesday, raising worries about the security of key South Korean facilities during North Korean provocations.
The rubbish that landed on the presidential compound in central Seoul contained no dangerous material and no one was hurt, South Korea’s presidential security service said. While North Korea likely lacks sophisticated technology to drop balloons on specific targets, some experts say South Korea should shoot down incoming North Korean balloons next time to protect major facilities because they might contain hazardous substances in the future.
North Korea’s latest balloon launches came days after South Korea boosted its broadcasts of K-pop songs and propaganda messages across the two countries’ heavily armed border. Their tit-for-tat Cold War-style campaigns are inflaming tensions, with the rivals threatening stronger steps and warning of grave consequences.
Seoul officials earlier said North Korea used the direction of winds to fly balloons toward South Korea, but some of the past balloons had timers that were likely meant to pop the bags of trash in midair.
The security service gave no further details about the rubbish found at the presidential compound. It refused to disclose whether President Yoon Suk Yeol was at the compound when the balloons were flying over his office, a no-fly zone in South Korea.
If North Korea is found to have used timers or any other device to deliberately dump trash on the presidential office, it would invite a strong response by South Korea. But experts say dropping balloons on selected ground targets requires advanced technology and that North Korea would certainly lack such an ability.
“Some of (the hundreds of balloons) launched by North Korea landed on the presidential compound by coincidence. North Korea has no technology to precisely drop balloons at certain targets,” said Jung Chang Wook, head of the Korea Defense Study Forum think tank in Seoul.
Jung said that a GPS navigation device and a power system would need to be attached to a balloon to make it fall on certain sites and that North Korea doesn’t possess such balloons. He said North Korea likely wanted the balloons to fall on Seoul, about an hour’s drive from the border, after calculating factors like the weight of the trash bags tied to the balloons, the volume of air in the balloons and the weather conditions.