ESCALATION

North Korea Has Sent 1,000 Trash Balloons to South Korea This Week

South Korea vowed to retaliate by taking steps the North would find “unbearable”—which could mean blasting K-pop music across the DMZ.

North Korea launched 720 balloons filled with trash, cigarette butts, and other litter across the border with South Korea on Saturday night, just four days after it sent an initial wave of 260 refuse balloons to its southern neighbor on Tuesday. That brings the total amount of trash balloons—a surprise which Kim Jong Un’s little sister called “sincere presents” for the South— to about 1,000 launched this week. (The South Korean military dispelled initial reports that there was poop in the balloons, although some appeared to contain compost.) On Sunday, South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol slammed North Korea for engaging in “dirty provocations no normal country would think of,” and promised to escalate with “steps North Korea would find unbearable.” That “unbearable” retaliation could take the form of blasting K-pop music through the Demilitarized Zone, The New York Times reported, since North Korea has increased its crackdown on South Korean cultural exports like K-pop and K-dramas.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to note that the new balloons contain trash and other litter but not feces.