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| Situation Update No. 6 Ref.no.: EX-20100326-25463-KOR
Situation Update No. 6
On 2010-03-27 at 06:58:50 [UTC]
Event: Explosion
Location: South Korea West Sea Baengnyeong Island area Number of Missing: 46 person(s)
Number of Evacuated: 58 person(s)
Situation: South Korea’s president ordered an investigation on Saturday into the cause of the sinking of a navy ship near the disputed North Korea border but officials said it was unlikely to have been the result of an attack by Pyongyang. Initial speculation that North Korea might have sunk the ship spooked Wall Street, where share prices dipped overnight partly on geopolitical concerns, and the won dropped against the dollar. "Every possibility should be considered in investigating causes of the ship sinking and the investigation must be fast and thorough," President Lee Myung-bak’s office quoted him as telling an emergency government meeting early on Saturday. But MBC television quoted defence ministry sources as saying it was unlikely the prickly North was involved, although they were checking for a possible link. The ministry was also investigating whether it was the result of an internal explosion. Presidential Blue House spokeswoman Kim Eun-hye also said there had been no unusual movements by North Korea, which has a million-strong military, much of it near the heavily armed border that has divided the Korean peninsula for more than half a century. Local media quoted a presidential official as saying satellite pictures and other information showed no sign of the North Korean military in the area at the time of the sinking. The defence ministry said 58 of the 104 on board had been rescued and Yonhap quoted navy officials as saying several had died. It was later quoted as saying 46 were still missing. "An unidentified reason caused a hole in the ship, which led to its sinking. Currently 58 have been rescued out of the total 104 on board.
Rescue efforts are under way," the ministry said. "The ship fired a warning shot at an unidentified object, and the object was later suspected to have been a flock of birds. But we are checking," it said. Earlier, South Korean media had quoted officials as saying the North could have torpedoed the ship. One said it could have struck a mine. "The loud firing sound remained for about 15 minutes, while I watched TV. I never heard such loud firing sound in my entire life staying at (the) island, and the sound was definitely different from those heard from usual drills," Yonhap news agency quoted one 56-year-old resident on a nearby island as saying. MBC TV said it could take up to 20 days to bring the 1,200-tonne ship to the surface. It sank in waters 15-20 metres deep. The sinking occurred as the impoverished North has grown increasingly frustrated by its wealthy neighbour, which has given the cold shoulder to recent attempts to reopen a lucrative tourist business on the northern side of the frontier. It also coincides with mounting pressure on Pyongyang to end a more than one-year boycott of international talks to end its efforts to build a nuclear arsenal. There have been concerns that the North might resort to military grandstanding, a tactic it has often used in the past when it is gearing up for negotiations with the outside world.
Reports of a possible naval clash saw the won weaken roughly 0.45 percent against the dollar and were cited by analysts as one reason for a dip in U.S. stocks. The price to insure Korean sovereign debt rose to 83 basis points from 78 basis points in the wake of the news, according to two trading sources. That means the cost to insure $10 million in South Korean debt increased by $5,000 to $83,000. Markets have become largely inured to sabre-rattling by North Korea but it has in the past caused brief jitters that were quickly reversed. The ship sank near the disputed Yellow Sea border off the west coast of the peninsula which was the scene of two deadly naval fights between the rival Koreas in the past decade. |  | | | |
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