Takeoff and landing at South Korea’s Incheon International Airport was disrupted about three hours before dawn on Wednesday due to balloons filled with trash launched by North Korea, an airport spokesman said.
One balloon landed on the tarmac near Passenger Terminal 2 and the three runways in Incheon were temporarily closed, the spokesperson said.
North Korea does have that blown up balloons with waste into South Korea since late May, and hundreds of countries in South Korea.
Several balloons were seen in and around the airport’s borders, the spokesman said, adding that this was not the first time operations at the airport – which is about 40 km from the North Korean border – had been disrupted by balloons near.
The disruption to domestic and international flights occurred between 1:46 a.m. and 4:44 a.m. and the runways have since reopened, Incheon International Airport Corporation said.
Flight volume is usually low at that time of day. FlightRadar24 showed that during that time, eight arriving cargo and passenger flights were diverted to South Korea’s Cheongju or Jeju airports, and one China Cargo freighter from Shanghai was diverted to Yantai, China.
Several more landings were delayed and departures were delayed by several hours.
North Korea has said the balloons are retaliation for a propaganda campaign by North Korean defectors and activists in the South. send balloons regularly with food, medicine, money and leaflets criticizing the North’s leaders.
Among the articles carried by the North Korean balloons According to South Korea, the items include items printed with Hello Kitty characters, poorly worn clothing and soil containing traces of human feces and parasites.
The South Korean military said on Wednesday that about 100 balloons had fallen to the ground between Tuesday and Wednesday, mainly in the capital Seoul and surrounding Gyeonggi province. Most only had pieces of paper with them.
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