NORTH Korea has flown more trash-filled balloons over the border but South Korea replied by blasting propaganda and K-pop from loudspeakers.
Bizarre footage shows two giant white balloons near what appears to be a residential block in South Korea.
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Armed officials were then seen piling up the piled of rubbish, which appeared to include bits of paper, plastic bottles and pieces of fabric.
The Koreas’ Cold War-style psychological fight is adding to the already boiling tensions on the Korean Peninsula, as the rivals keep vowing dire consequences against one other.
It comes after Pyongyang in May sent a wave of 260 “filthy” faeces-filled balloons to South Korea in a bizarre intimidation move.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North Korean balloons were flying Sunday morning north of capital Seoul after crossing the border.
Read more on North-South Korea
It said later Sunday that the South Korean military was responding by expanding loudspeaker broadcasts at all major sections of the Koreas’ 154-mile-long border.
“The North Korean military’s tension-escalating acts can result in causing critical consequences for it,” the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
“The responsibility for this kind of situation is entirely on North Korea’s government.”
South Korean military said the North’s actions raising tensions near the heavily armed border could have fatal consequences, adding that Kim Jong-un’s regime would be solely responsible.
“As we warned several times, the military will carry out loudspeaker broadcasts in full scale and on all fronts starting 1 pm today,” the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, calling the North’s launch of balloons “vulgar and shameful.”
Seoul on Thursday resumed blasting frontline propaganda broadcasts for the first time in about 40 days in response to the North’s previous balloon activities.
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The latest South Korean broadcasts included K-pop songs and news on BTS member Jins torch-bearing ahead of the Paris Olympics and the recent defection of a senior North Korean diplomat.
The broadcasts also called the mine-planting works by North Korean soldiers at the border “hellish, slave-like lives,” South Korean media reported.
South Korean officials have previously said broadcasts from their loudspeakers can travel about six miles during the day and 15 miles at night.
Kim Jong-un’s regime hasn’t made an official response to the ongoing broadcasts.
North Korea’s latest balloon-flying on Sunday is the ninth of its kind since late May.
Pyongyang has floated more than 2,000 balloons to drop waste paper, scraps of cloth, cigarette butts, waste batteries and even manure on South Korea, though they have so far caused no major damage south of the border.
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Surreal footage showed the enormous, semi-transparent balloons landing in residential areas, parks, gardens and forests.
Some of them were sent in pairs with plastic bottles, batteries, shoe parts and other trash tied to them in bags.
Local media shares images of what looked like poo inside the garbage bags – as civilians were warned not to leave their homes.
North Korea has said the initial balloons were launched in response to South Korean activists sending political leaflets to the North via their own balloons.
In a statement last week, the North Korean dictator’s powerful younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, warned that “South Korean scum must be ready to pay a gruesome and dear price” over the leafleting activities.
She said more South Korean leaflets had been found in North Korea.
That raised concerns North Korea could stage physical provocations, rather than balloon launches.
On June 9, South Korea made propaganda broadcasts for about two hours but had not done them again to avoid raising animosities until Thursday.
Seoul warned Friday it would conduct loudspeaker broadcasts in a fuller manner and take other stronger steps if North Korea continues provocations like balloon launches.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have already been running high because of North Korea’s provocative run of missile tests and the expansion of US-South Korean military drills that North Korea calls “invasion rehearsals.”
Experts say North Korea’s expanding ties with Russia could also embolden Kim Jong-un to stage bigger provocations.
North Korea v South Korea: Rising Tensions
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
RELATIONS between North and South Korea are high just days after one of Kim Jong-Un’s rockets exploded midair.
It launched a spy satellite aboard a new rocket from its main space centre, but it blew up soon after liftoff.
Seoul was conducting drills with its fighter jets just hours ahead of the launch in protest.
In November, dictator Kim said the country was entering a “new era of space power” following the successful launch of its first spy satellite.
Despite international attempts to dampen North Korea’s testing – the regime has remained hellbent on showboating its new tech.
In September, Russia even pledged to help Pyongyang build satellites.
