North Korea has terminated artillery covers across its western maritime border line

North Korea has fired artillery shells throughout its western maritime border, prompting return fire from South Korea, officials say. sevenload high auto insurance

Dozens with the shells landed on a South Korean island, from which plumes of smoke are climbing. At the least 4 soldiers are explained to possess been harm.

South Korea has issued its highest non-wartime alert in response.

Correspondents say this is one of the most really serious incidents in between the two since the Korean War inside the 1950s.

Top leaders are set up in an underground bunker in Seoul about the incident, Reuters news agency noted.

The incident comes days after North Korea revealed it had a contemporary uranium enrichment plant - possibly giving it a 2nd route to a nuclear weapon.

Earlier, the US ruled out additional denuclearisation talks even though Pyongyang continued to get the job done around the facility.
'Illegal firing'

South Korean officials explained artillery rounds landed on Yeonpyeong island, close the disputed inter-Korean maritime border for the west with the Korean Peninsula.

"A North Korean artillery unit staged an illegal firing provocation at 1434 PM (0534 GMT) and South Korean troops fired back quickly in self-defence," a defence ministry spokesman informed AFP.

A resident around the island informed the agency that dozens of homes had been damaged, even though television pics reportedly showed plumes of smoke climbing over the island.

"Houses and mountains are on fire and individuals are evacuating. You can not see incredibly nicely as a result of plumes of smoke," a witness around the island informed YTN television station.

"People are frightened to death and shelling continues as we converse," the witness explained.

South Korea had deployed fighter jets for the island, Yonhap news agency explained.

This western maritime border has been the scene of quite a few clashes in between the two Koreas inside the previous.

In March, a South Korean warship went down close the border with the loss of 46 lives.

International investigators say a North Korean torpedo sank the ship, although Pyongyang denies any function inside the incident.

Since then relations in between the two neighbours - that have not signed a peace treaty since the 1950-53 Korean War - have already been incredibly tense.