BEIJING - North Korea launched a massive artillery barrage on a South Korean island Tuesday, killing two South Korean marines, wounding at least 19 others and setting more than 60 buildings ablaze in the most serious confrontation since the North sank a South Korean warship with a torpedo in March.
South Korea immediately responded with its own artillery barrage and put its fighter jets on high alert, bringing the two sides - which technically have remained in a state of war since the Korean armistice in 1953 - to the brink of a conflagration.
In the United States, a White House spokesman said President Obama was "outraged" by North Korea's "provocative" action, adding that the U.S. stands by South Korea.
South Korea called the shelling of the civilian-inhabited island of Yeonpyeong, which lies near the disputed maritime border separating North and South Korea, a breach of the 57-year-old armistice that halted the Korean War without a peace agreement.
People are also reading…
The North fired an estimated 200 artillery shells onto the island, and the South returned fire with about 80 shells from its own howitzers. The attack began just after 10:30 p.m. Tucson time Monday.
News reports said the 1,000 or so residents of the island escaped to bunkers while the shelling continued. Television footage showed several plumes of black smoke rising from the island.
The United States, Russia and China all called for the hostilities to cease.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement, "The United States strongly condemns this attack and calls on North Korea to halt its belligerent action and to fully abide by the terms of the armistice agreement."
The U.S. keeps tens of thousands of troops in South Korea to aid in its defense, and Gibbs said, "The United States is firmly committed to the defense of our ally, the Republic of Korea, and to the maintenance of regional peace and stability."
The latest conflict comes at a particularly tense time on the Korean peninsula, just days after the reclusive government in Pyong- yang revealed to a visiting American scientist the existence of a new uranium-enrichment facility, and just weeks after North Korean leader Kim Jung Il began laying the groundwork for his youngest son to succeed him.
The flare-up also comes as the chief U.S. negotiator for the peninsula, Stephen Bosworth, was in Beijing for talks about how to respond to the North's new uranium facility.
China urged a return to suspended six-party talks to help defuse tensions. China is North Korea's main ally and trading partner, contributing food aid as well as economic assistance and investment. The two fought together against American and South Korean troops in the Korean War.
China is concerned, among other things, about a possible breakdown of the North Korean regime, which might lead to a flood of refugees across the border into China.
Chinese analysts on Tuesday interpreted the North's actions - so soon after the revelation of the new uranium-enrichment facility - as a possible call for attention by the North, and an attempt to increase its bargaining position.
"It is my understanding that North Korea is creating some incidents to make the international world have contact with it," said Chu Shulong, a professor from Beijing's Tsinghua University. "And then it can bargain with the international world to get benefits."
In Washington, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the new presumptive speaker of the House, called North Korea "an unstable, aggressive regime" and said he joined Obama "in condemning its hostile action today."
North Korea contended that South Korea started the clash by firing "dozens of shells" at North Korean territory. South Korea denied that charge, saying it had fired toward the west, not the north, as part of military drills. In response, South Korea said it fired 155 mm self-propelled howitzers at the North and scrambled fighters.
At least 16 South Korean military personnel and three civilians were reported wounded. Most of the shells landed on a military base on Yeonpyeong Island, 70 miles west of Seoul and seven miles off the North Korean mainland.
