Seoul, South Korea:
North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire on Tuesday after dozens of shells fired from the North struck a South Korean island near the countries' disputed maritime border, South Korean military officials said.
South Korean artillery batteries returned fire with about 80 rounds, the military went to "crisis status," and fighter planes were scrambled.
Fourteen military personnel were injured, four of them seriously, said Kiyheon Kwon, an official at the Defense Ministry in Seoul, and the marines were checking on civilian casualties as night was falling. The South Korean broadcaster YTN reported that one marine had been killed but there was no immediate official confirmation. News reports said dozens of houses were on fire, and TV footage showed large plumes of black smoke spiraling from the island.
South Korean artillery units returned fire after the North's shells struck South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island at 2:34 p.m., said Kiyheon Kwon, an official at the Defense Ministry. The North also fired numerous rounds into the Yellow Sea, he said.
A spokesman for President Lee Myung-bak said Mr. Lee gathered his security-related ministers and senior aides at a crisis meeting in the underground situation room at the Blue House, the presidential office and residence.
The president's instructions were to take a stern response and carefully manage the situation to prevent the clash from escalating," the spokesman said.
Chinese officials said they were "concerned" and called on both sides to resume six-party talks. "We hope the relevant the parties will do more contribution to the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula," a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, said at a regular briefing in Beijing.
Officials gave the impression, however, that China was in the dark about the attacks. "The situation needs to be verified," Mr. Hong said, adding that "China is willing to stay close communication with the relevant parties concerning the Korean nuclear issue."
A Russian Foreign Ministry official, who was not identified by name, urged calm. "It is important that this not escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula," he told the Interfax news agency.
The attack on the island came as 70,000 South Korean troops were beginning an annual nationwide military drill called Safeguarding the Nation. The exercise has been sharply criticized by Pyongyang as "simulating an invasion of the North" and "a means to provoke a war." The drill includes some American forces, but a defense official said no American military personnel were on the island when it was hit.
A spokeswoman for the Unification Ministry in Seoul said officials were "reviewing the security situation" for several hundred South Korean workers at the Kaesong Industrial Park, a jointly operated facility in North Korea.
The shelling also followed revelations of two new nuclear facilities in the North -- a light water reactor under construction and a modern plant for enriching uranium that Pyongyang says is operational.
Yeonpyeong Island sits just two miles from the Northern Limit Line, the disputed sea border which the North does not recognize, and only eight miles from the North Korean coast. The island houses a garrison of about 1,000 South Korean marines, and the navy has deployed its newest class of "patrol killer" guided-missile ships in the Western Sea, as the Yellow Sea is also known.
About 1,600 civilians also live on the island, mostly fishermen, and local news reports said by late afternoon that some residents had fled the island on fishing boats.
The island's terrain is pocked with concrete bunkers, tank traps and trenches. Residents conduct monthly air raid drills and keep gas masks in their homes. Posters advise islanders to keep an eye out for North Korean naval boats and submarines. After a nuclear test by the North in 2009, the island stocked its 19 bomb shelters with water and dried noodles.
Visitors to the island are screened at the ferry landing by military police officers searching for North Korean agents. The only regular link to the rest of the South is a 66-mile, two-and-a-half-hour ferry ride.
Three weeks ago, the South Korean Navy fired warning shots at a North Korean fishing boat after the vessel strayed across the Northern Limit Line. The North Korean boat then reportedly retreated.
In March, a South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan, was sunk in the area and 46 sailors died. The incident badly frayed inter-Korean relations and Seoul blamed the sinking on a North Korean torpedo attack. The North has denied any role in incident.
In August, North Korea fired 110 artillery rounds near Yeonpyeong and another South Korean island, the Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul said at the time.
Previous naval skirmishes occurred in the western sea in 1999 and 2002.
The shelling came just days after an American nuclear scientist who visited North Korea earlier this month said he had been shown a vast new facility built secretly and rapidly to enrich uranium.
The scientist, Siegfried S. Hecker, a Stanford professor who previously directed the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said in an interview that he had been "stunned" by the sophistication of the new plant, where he saw "hundreds and hundreds" of centrifuges that had just been installed in a recently gutted building and operated from what he called "an ultra-modern control room." The North Koreans claimed 2,000 centrifuges were already installed and running, he said.
The development confronted the Obama administration with the prospect that North Korea country is preparing to expand its nuclear arsenal or build a far more powerful type of atomic bomb.
Whether the calculated revelation is a negotiating ploy by North Korea or a signal that it plans to accelerate its weapons program even as it goes through a perilous leadership change, it creates a new challenge for President Obama at a moment when his program for gradual, global nuclear disarmament appears imperiled at home and abroad.
Analysts were quick to see the shelling as a deliberate North Korean provocation.
"Deliberate, yes, and it's a sign of North Korea's increasing frustration," said Choi Jin-wook, a North Korea expert at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a research institute in Seoul.
"Washington has turned a deaf ear to Pyongyang and North Korea is saying, "Look here. We're still alive. We can cause trouble. You can't ignore us."
Mr. Choi said the United States has "turned a deaf ear to Pyongyang" and its demand for the removal of a broad range of sanctions against the regime for its continuing nuclear efforts.
"They see that they can't pressure Washington," he said, "so they've taken South Korea hostage again."
Mr. Choi said North Korea's first and most urgent priority is for food aid, which has been largely denied by South Korea and strangled by international and United States sanctions.
"They're in a desperate situation and they want food immediately, not next year," he said.
"I can't think of recent event in the past five or 10 years that approaches this magnitude," said John Swenson-Wright, an expert with the Royal Institute for International Affairs, also known as Chatham House, a private policy organization in London. "Symbolically and practically, this is a serious escalation in provocation," he said in a telephone interview.
Dr. Swenson-Wright said the North Korean action seemed designed to send a signal that Pyongyang was not prepared to bow to international pressure. But he warned: "The risk of this escalating with South Korea is not inconsiderable."
He said North Korea had displayed an ability to project itself to the center of global attention and the shelling "puts North Korea back on the international agenda."
Dr. Swenson-Wright also said the shelling could be designed to "use the stand-off with the international community to shore up the new leader," referring to Kim Jong-un.
Tuesday's exchange is the sharpest clash since the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, in September positioned his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, as his successor to lead the secretive nation. The younger Mr. Kim was promoted on Sept. 28 to the rank of four-star general, a prerequisite for his ascendancy to power. The elder Mr. Kim, who is said to be in poor health after apparently suffering a stroke in 2008, has hurried the succession of Kim Jong-un in recent weeks.
Other members of the Kim family and the leader's inner circle also received new posts and promotions as the leadership hierarchy was reshuffled to provide Kim Jong-un with mentors and supporters as he solidifies his power.