During a training exercise, the South Korean air force claims to have unintentionally delivered eight bombs in the wrong location.
According to the South Korean air force, during a training exercise, one of its fighter jets unintentionally dropped eight bombs in the wrong location, injuring civilians.
“An Air Force KF-16 aircraft abnormally released eight MK-82 general-purpose bombs, landing outside the designated firing range,” the Air Force announced Thursday.
Pocheon, which is roughly 25 kilometers (16 miles) south of the heavily fortified border with nuclear-armed North Korea, was the scene of the incident at around 10 a.m. (01:00 GMT).
The air force released a statement saying, “We sincerely regret the unintentional release of the bombs, which resulted in civilian casualties, and wish those injured a swift recovery.”
It stated that it will “take all necessary measures, including compensation for damages” and that it had formed an accident response group to look into the situation.
The military aircraft had been “participating in a joint live-fire exercise involving both the Air Force and Army,” according to the Air Force.
According to the state-funded Yonhap News Agency, South Korea and the United States conducted joint live-fire exercises in Pocheon on Thursday.
The explosives were “presumed to have fallen on a village during a South Korea-US joint exercise,” according to the country’s National Fire Agency.
According to the report, this led to “casualties and property damage, with many displaced residents,” with three individuals suffering minor injuries and four people suffering serious injuries.
The statement said parts of two residences and one church building were destroyed.
One of the biggest yearly joint exercises between the security allies, the joint South Korean-US “Freedom Shield” military drills, is scheduled to start later this month.
Since the 1950–1953 War ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty, the two Koreas are still officially at war.
Tens of thousands of US soldiers are stationed in the South, partly to defend Seoul from Pyongyang.
