The North Korean army has fired more than 60 artillery rounds in the vicinity of the Yeonpyeong island group, says the Seoul army.
North Korea has continued artillery fire in South Korean areas on Saturday.
According to the news agency AFP, the South Korean armed forces say that North Korea fired more than 60 artillery shots in the vicinity of the Yeonpyeong island group.
The already quite volatile situation on the Korean peninsula intensified on Friday, when North Korea fired about 200 artillery rounds To the inter-Korean buffer zone in the Yellow Sea.
“Repeated artillery fire threatens both peace on the Korean peninsula and increases tensions,” South Korea's armed forces said, according to AFP, on Saturday.
Friday's as a result of the shooting, residents of the Yeonpyeong group of islands and Baengnyeong island, located on the west coast of South Korea, were ordered to be evacuated and ferry traffic to the islands was cut off.
Yeonpyeong has a couple thousand inhabitants and Baengnyeong less than five thousand. South Korea's Ministry of Defense announced on Friday that there were no casualties from North Korea's firing.
The situation was not as fortunate in 2010, when North Korea fired fire on the Yeonpyeong island group for the last time. Artillery fire killed four people, two of whom were civilians. It was the first time North Korea attacked a civilian area since the 1950-53 Korean War.
At that time, South Korea responded to the artillery fire with its own artillery.
North Korea the artillery fire fired over the past few days may be related to the recent meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of North Korea.
The leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un stated then that South Korea can no longer be considered part of the same unified Korean nation with which unification is sought.
Based on Kim Jong-un's claims, South Korea would now be a hostile state that considers North Korea as its main enemy. North Korea would therefore not even be in a truce with South Korea anymore, but at war.
Turku university researcher Antti Leppänen rate for HS on Friday, that there has been a significant change in North Korean politics. He still could not say for sure whether North Korea's armed activities are related to the Central Committee's policy.
According to Leppänen, Kim Jong-un's statement should not be taken literally. Although North Korea considers itself to be in a state of war, it is unlikely to initiate active combat operations.
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