A South Korean village near the North Korean border was mistakenly peeled Thursday by two southern air force fighter, leaving 15 people injured and damaging the houses and a church.
The jets participated in a joint exercise with the American army when each of them abandoned four bombs, according to the South Army. The bombs had to reach a range several kilometers from the village, but at least one of the South Korean pilots had entered inaccurate coordinates, the army said.
Four of the injured people were seriously injured and had to be operated on, pocket officials said a city that includes the village of Nogok, where the bombs fell. Of the other 11, seven have undergone a shock and minor scratches from the fall. The local media said that none of the victims was in critical condition.
The army said that it suspended all live shooting exercises during an investigation. The fiscal year on Thursday was linked to annual joint exercises, known as Freedom Shield, which the South Korean and American soldiers carry out each year, which should start officially on Monday.
A Nogok woman who runs a store in her house said she was there when an explosion “like an earthquake” rocked the village, breaking the windows in her house and in neighbors. His house was 700 feet from the place where the most serious damage was reported.
The photos transported by the local media showed a house in the village with parts of its walls and the tiled roof. They also showed damage to a Catholic church and branches torn with scattered pines.
The South Korean air army did not say how much eight bombs have dropped Nogok, which is about 20 miles from the highly fortified North Korean border. He apologized and promised compensation for the victims.
“Something that should never have happened has just happened,” said mayor Baek Young-Hyun. “The place where the bombs landed is completely chaotic and looks like a battlefield.”
Mr. Baek said that three major military shooting ranges occupy 12,253 acres of land in Pocheon and that bullets that have turned from there sometimes endangered the villagers. He demanded that the military stop using the ranges of shooting until it can guarantee that accidents like Thursday will not happen again.
Thursday, the South Korean and American soldiers said that this year’s Freedom Shield exercises would begin on Monday and 11 days. But in recent days, they had started smaller joint exercises in relation to the main exercises.
US troops – but no air force aircraft in the United States – participated in the joint shooting exercise when the accident occurred on Thursday, the US military said in Korea.
“We are taking this incident very seriously,” said Colonel Ryan Donald, an American military spokesman, adding that his command was coordinating closely with the South Korea Defense Ministry and embarked on an in-depth and transparent investigation.
The United States has 28,500 soldiers stationed in South Korea. The allies conduct several joint military exercises each year, calling them of a defensive nature. The Carl Vinson American Aircraft Crooren group has steamed in a South Korean port this week to join the Freedom Shield exercise.
North Korea has bristled the exercises, calling them for rehearsals for war.
Monday, Kim Yo-Jong, the sister of the chief of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, who also acts as a spokesman, accused the administration of President Trump of the “most hostile and conflicting will” against his country, citing his continuation of the joint exercises with South Korea.
“We will never limit ourselves to sit motionless and comment on the situation,” said Kim. She said that North Korea could resume nuclear weapons tests.
