N. Korea launches trash balloons for five consecutive days

North Korea continued to send trash balloons to South Korea during the morning hours on Sunday, following Saturday night. “Garbage balloons have been floating again from North Korea since around 9 a.m. We will respond with determination and calmness in accordance with the response manual,” the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said Sunday. “Depending on the wind direction, there is a possibility that the garbage balloons will travel to Seoul and northern Gyeonggi Province.”

According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, over 50 of the 200 balloons captured on Saturday were found in Seoul and northern Gyeonggi Province. The balloons' contents included garbage such as paper, vinyl, and plastic bottles. They contained no safety hazards, it said. North Korea resumed launching the balloons on September 4 after a nearly month-long hiatus since August 10. The South Korean military believes that North Korea began sending trash balloons again, reloading them with large amounts of garbage from the massive flood.

This analysis is based on the circumstantial evidence that the balloons were loaded with compost when the North first started sending them to the South in late May, and then relatively clean paper and plastic, while balloons have contained plastic bottles showing signs of use. In addition, there have been a number of cases where the North has insisted on floating the balloons even though it is less likely that they will fly south, given the wind direction. “This is likely due to pressure from their top chain of command to respond to the floating of leaflets to North Korea by civilian organizations in the South,” a South Korean military official said.

“We are closely monitoring the trend as we believe that the North, while sticking to its 'hardline-to-hardline' stance of not succumbing to South Korea’s full-scale operation of loudspeakers along the inter-Korean border, may try to ease tension on the part of the South by routinizing 'garbage terrorism' and then launch some kind of surprise provocation,” the military official said. Property damage caused by North Korea's garbage balloons to the South was estimated at more than 100 million won (about 74,600 U.S. dollars).


Sang-Ho Yun ysh1005@donga.com