North Korea Launches Record Number Of Missiles, Prompting Response From South

North Korea has just fired off the highest number of missiles ever recorded in a day as far as its recent history of threatening test launches. South Korea’s defense ministry recorded as many as 23 short-range missiles fired to the east and west of the peninsula on Wednesday, including one that landed close to the south’s territorial waters, said to be a first going back to 1945. 

Of the missile that landed close, “JCS said the missile landed in international waters 167 kilometers (104 miles) northwest of South Korea’s Ulleung island, about 26 kilometers south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) – the de facto inter-Korean maritime border that North Korea does not recognize,” as cited in CNN.

Yonhap via Reuters

At least one missile also fell just outside Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), according to Tokyo officials. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a written statement, “This is the first time since the two Koreas split that a ballistic missile fell close to our waters, south of the NLL.”

Japan’s Defense Ministry issued a statement saying, “North Korea has rapidly escalated its provocations, launching more than a dozen missiles today alone and reportedly firing more than 100 artillery shells into the Japan sea since announcing an extremely provocative statement earlier in the day.”

The launches set off the air raid warning system on a South Korean island which lies 75 miles east of the Korean Peninsula in the Sea of Japan:

An air raid warning on Ulleung island, located about 120 kilometers east of the peninsula, was lifted about 2 p.m. local time on Wednesday. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said the North Korean test was an “effective territorial encroachment.”

This forced the island’s some 9,000 residents to seek shelter in air raid enclosures. Answering Pyongyang, South Korea’s military quickly launched its own air-to-surface missiles after scrambling F15-K and KF-16 fighter jets. 

“This precision strike by our military shows that we have willpower to decidedly respond to any sorts of provocation and the capability and readiness to precisely strike the enemy,” the South Korean military said. It said at least three missiles were fired toward the north’s maritime territory. 

The North Korean military continued to the tit-for-tat undeterred, firing about 100 artillery shells into eastern waters not far from the maritime border. Earlier in the week Pyongyang threated a major response to the ongoing joint US-South Korean aerial exercises. 

South Korea’s military said it fired three air-to-ground missiles towards north of its maritime border with North Korea in response to the North’s launch of multiple missiles, including one which landed less than 40 miles off South Korea’s coast https://t.co/PmbAL9JG86 pic.twitter.com/O1JnLpHiDG

— Reuters (@Reuters) November 2, 2022

A Monday North Korean Foreign Ministry statement had warned, “The situation in the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity has entered the serious confrontation phase of power for power again due to the ceaseless and reckless military moves of the US and South Korea.”