, a disputed inter-Korean maritime border. The missile landed 35 miles from the South Korean city of Sokcho, on the east coast, and 103 miles from Ulleung, where air raid warnings were issued. "The North Korean missile launch is very unusual and unacceptable as it fell close to South Korean territorial waters south of the Northern Limit Line for the first time (since the peninsula was divided in 1948)," said Kang Shin-chul, JCS director of operations. The air raid warnings flashed on national television and residents of the island of Ulleung rushed to take cover. "We heard the siren at around 8:55am and all of us in the building went down to the evacuation place in the basement," an Ulleung county official told Reuters. "We stayed there until we came upstairs at around 9:15am after hearing that the projectile fell into the high seas." The landing site was in international waters, but still far south of the extension of the nation's border. "Our military can never tolerate this kind of North Korea's provocative act and will strictly and firmly respond under close South Korea-US cooperation," the JCS said in a news release. Yoon Suk-yeol, the South Korean president called an emergency meeting of the National Security Council shortly before Seoul launched its own military retaliation. Yasukazu Hamada, Japan's defence minister, said North Korea's actions 'threaten the peace and stability of Japan, the wider region, as well as the broader international community, and are utterly unacceptable.'){kind=link}
Seoul launched its own military retaliation as the South Korean president called an emergency meeting of the National Security Council
Air raid sirens blared in South Korea on Wednesday after North Korea test-fired at least ten missiles, including one that landed in waters near the rival nation’s maritime border and prompted a rare warning for residents of a remote island to shelter in bunkers.
South Korean warplanes fired three “precision air-to-surface missiles” into waters north of the inter-Korean sea border a few hours later in response, adding to the spiralling military tensions this year on the Peninsula which has seen an unprecedented number of weapons tests by Pyongyang.
The North’s missile launches came shortly after the regime threatened to use nuclear weapons to make the US and South Korea face the “most horrible price in history” if they attempted to invade.
Pyongyang stepped up its angry rhetoric against the allies this week after they launched one of their largest combined military air drills on Monday, with hundreds of warplanes from both sides practicing battle formations.