Balloons from North Korea cause South Korean airport to temporarily shut down

South Korean soldiers examine items carried by balloons from North Korea to the Incheon area.

A spokesman for Incheon International Airport (South Korea) said that flights taking off and landing here were interrupted for about 3 hours on June 26 due to balloons filled with trash from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

A balloon landed on the runway near passenger terminal 2, causing three runways at the airport to be temporarily closed, Reuters quoted the spokesman as saying.

North Korea has been launching garbage-laden balloons into South Korea since late May. The spokesman said some balloons have been detected in and around the airport boundary.

This is not the first time operations at the airport, located about 40 kilometers from the North Korean border, have been disrupted by balloons.

The disruption to domestic and international flights occurred between 1:46 a.m. and 4:44 a.m. on June 26, before the runways were reopened, according to the Seoul International Airport Corporation.

Flight numbers were typically low at the time. Data from FlightRadar24 shows that eight cargo and passenger flights were diverted to South Korea's Cheongju or Jeju airports during that time, and a China Cargo freighter from Shanghai was diverted to Yantai, China.

Several other flights were scheduled to land but were delayed, and departures were delayed for several hours at Incheon airport.

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North Korea said the balloons were in retaliation for a propaganda campaign from South Korea, which regularly sends balloons carrying food, medicine, money and protest leaflets into the North.

Among the items transported by North Korean balloons were Hello Kitty-themed items, old clothes and soil containing traces of human feces and parasites, South Korea said.

The South Korean military said on June 26 that about 100 balloons had fallen to the ground in the previous two days, mainly in the capital Seoul and neighboring provinces, most of which contained only scraps of paper.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/bong-bay-tu-trieu-tien-khien-san-bay-han-quoc-tam-ngung-hoat-dong-185240626121510971.htm