South Korea’s acting defense minister, Kim Seon-ho, said on Thursday that military exercises in the city of Pocheon, north of Seoul, would be suspended pending results of an inquiry into the accidental dropping of artillery bombs by South Korean fighter jets in a civilian area, Yonhap news agency reported.
Two KF-16 jets reportedly dropped a total of eight MK-82 bombs outside of a training range, some 26 miles from Seoul, with one of them landing in the village of Nogok. The bomb damaged five houses and injured at least 15 people, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported. A warehouse, a church, a greenhouse and a truck were also hit.
Kim Seon-ho visited the village together with chief of the parliamentary national defense committee Sung Il-jong and meet with the locals, Yonhap reported.
He said he had ordered a thorough investigation into the misdrop and promised that the necessary measures would be taken to prevent further damage. The air force set up a crisis response center to look into the cause of the incident.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the misdrop occurred during a joint South Korea-US exercise at the Seungjin Fire Training Field in Pocheon. The exercise involved F-35A, F-15K, KF-16 and FA-50 combat aircraft.
