North Korea Launches New Salvo of Balloons, but the South Barely Shrugs

Hong Yoongi was walking near South Korea’s Parliament building in Seoul when he spotted the interloper from North Korea.

The trespasser on Thursday was a balloon that had floated dozens of miles across the inter-Korean border and the Han River in the South to land near the National Assembly complex. But the authorities were on the case, and on the scene. Some military personnel wore white protective gear, masks and gloves to deal with the trash that had scattered on impact.

Over the past five days, North Korea has sent hundreds more drifting toward the South with payloads of trash like waste paper and used plastic bottles. This salvo follows a barrage of thousands of similar North Korean balloons earlier this summer. Pyongyang has said it was provoked by North Korean defectors in the South, who launched their own balloons carrying leaflets criticizing the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and USB sticks with K-pop music and K-dramas.

The South’s military has said that North’s balloons do not carry “harmful substances.” But they have become a nuisance, landing in farms, public parks in the capital and in residential areas. In July, some came down inside the grounds of the presidential office in Seoul.

Mr. Hong had seen another one of the balloons a few months earlier, near his home in Bundang, south of Seoul. But, he said, “the balloons haven’t affected my daily life at all.”

Living next to a nuclear-armed adversary is the reality for millions of South Koreans, who often shrug off provocations from the North.

“The most annoying part about the balloons is the countless warning texts I get from the government,” said Ahn Jae-hee, a resident of Seoul.

In recent days, officials in the South have sent more than a dozen safety