North Korea sends balloons filled with waste into the South

SEOUL, South Korea — Waste and propaganda are raining down across the Korean peninsula.

It's not the cross-border barrage South Koreans have been fearing, but the country's military said Wednesday that its nuclear-armed neighbor had launched more than 200 balloons across the border overnight carrying trash, bottles, old batteries, leaflets, fertilizer and other waste.

The balloons were found primarily in the border provinces of Gyeonggi and Gangwon, but were also seen hundreds of miles south in South Gyeongsang.

South Korea sent out a government emergency disaster alert urging citizens to refrain from touching the objects and to report any more incidents to the military.

Response teams were dispatched to identify what exactly was in the balloons, which confirmed the inclusion of fertilizers. South Korea's defense ministry told NBC News that no human waste was found, but said that North Korea did send human waste via balloon in 2016.

North Korea often uses human faeces as fertilizer.

More from NBC News:

Photographs released by the South Korean military showed inflated balloons anchored with plastic bags full with garbage.

Other images appeared to show trash scattered around collapsed balloons, with the word "excrement" written on a bag in one photograph.

According to the Yonhap news agency,this is the largest number of balloons from North Korea since similar incidents between 2016 and 2018.

South Korea's defense ministry told NBC News that North Korea had also disrupted GPS frequencies in the de facto sea border between the two countries.

"These acts by North Korea violate international law and threaten our people's safety," said South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, urging North Korea to cease its "inhumane and vulgar behaviors"