Yeonpyeong Island, attacked by dozens of artillery shells fired by North Korea, was extensively damaged on Tuesday, having civilian homes and forests ablaze and suffering from power outages. The North Korean attack killed two South Korean marines and left at least three residents wounded. About 70 houses are reportedly burned down.
Lee Jong-sik, a 43-year-old resident of Yeonpyeong, told the YTN News at about 4 p.m. that smoke had engulfed the whole town.
"You cannot see anything,” he said. "The town is totally dark because of the fire smoke.”
He said there are about six emergency shelters on the island. At his shelter, there are about 20 people staying together. "I don’t know about food and electricity,” he said. The resident said the fire was spreading fast as many of the civilian homes are built right next to each other. "It seems like the whole town is going to burn down if it continues to be like this,” he said. "Even the hillsides are on fire.”
A female mid-aged resident told KBS News that "something dark” was thrown above her head when the attack first began. "Then the whole town was destroyed,” she said. "Then I knew the shells were from North Korea.” The fire caused many blackouts across Yeonpyeong. The Ministry of Knowledge Economy said two electric wires from the island’s major power plant station were cut off by fire. As a result, 420 households out of 924 have no electricity supply.
The Korea Communication Commission, following the Economy ministry, reported that the service for mobile phones on the island has been suspended due to the blackout from power outages.
Seoul called North Korea’s artillery attack a "clear military provocation” and warned that they’d have to deal with "stern retaliation” if additional attacks launch in the future.
"Deal resolutely (with the attack) but make all-out efforts not to aggravate the situation,” South Korean president Lee Myung-bak was quoted as saying in an emergency meeting on Tuesday. n response, North Korea threatened to continue "merciless” strikes on South Korea, arguing their artillery firing was only triggered by South Korea’s initial attack, which the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the South says was a marine training session.
"Our revolutionary forces will continue to mount merciless military strikes without hesitation if the puppets in the South trespass even 0.0001 millimeter into our waters,” the statement of North Korea said.
Located only 12 kilometers away from the North’s coastline, the island of Yeonpyeong is extremely close to the western sea border where gun battles between the two Koreas took place in 1999, 2002 and November of last year. In March, tension escalated as North Korea torpedoed a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, leaving 46 sailors dead. Pyongyang has denied international accusations for the tragic incident. On Monday, the communist nation claimed that it is running a highly sophisticated uranium enrichment plant.
The two Koreas are still technically at war because their 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
