South Korea raises toll of people injured in fighter jet misfire to 29

The number of people injured in the accidental bombing of a South Korean village by military jets has risen to 29.

At least 15 civilians and 14 soldiers sustained injuries after two KF-16 fighter jets “abnormally” released eight MK-82 bombs on a village in Pocheon, 43km north of the capital Seoul, during joint military exercises with the US on Thursday.

Nine of the wounded were currently hospitalised, two of them with severe injuries, local media reported.

The MK-82 bombs, each weighing some 225kg, fell outside the designated range for the joint exercises, the military said. The ensuing blast destroyed homes and a church, and tremors from the explosion were felt nearly 1km away.

The villagers were evacuated to a town hall on Thursday as the military combed the area and then launched an investigation. The destruction of their homes had rendered many people homeless.

An initial investigation found the pilot of one of the KF-16 planes had entered the wrong coordinates for a bombing site.

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South Korea suspended live-fire exercises and training flights of its air force aircraft across the country on Friday until it was established what had gone wrong, the military said.

The planned Freedom Shield exercises with the US would continue, though, and fire drills and flight training restart once the exact cause of the incident was found and preventive steps formulated, it added.

A day after the unprecedented incident, the village remained covered in debris.

The interior and safety ministry allocated 300m won (£160,790) in disaster safety grants to Pocheon to facilitate swift emergency recovery. The fund would be used for temporary housing and psychological support for residents affected by the bombing, reports said.

“We will spare no necessary support to minimize the inconvenience for affected residents and to help stabilize the impacted area as soon as possible," acting minister of interior and safety Ko Kidong said.

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Meanwhile, dozens of activists and residents from the affected area held a rally near the defence ministry in Seoul to demand a halt to military drills that threatened the lives and peace of the people living in the area.

The residents reportedly said they had been protesting against the disturbance and danger from the nearby training grounds for years. "We, Pocheon citizens, are fundamentally questioning these ongoing military exercises," Lee Myoung Won, a Pocheon resident at the rally, was quoted by Reuters as saying.

The resident said it was unclear to them who the military drills were meant to be providing security for.

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Lee Illwoo, an expert with the Korea Defence Network, argued that the suspension of flight training would cause “really a big problem” in examining the operational plans of the US and South Korea. He told the Associated Press that flying warplanes would be essential to determining their real capabilities, discussing the size of reinforcements of US aircraft from abroad and modifying the operational plans of the allies.

The joint drills were planned to involve responses to evolving challenges like North Korea’s growing military partnership with Russia.

This article was amended on 11 March 2025. It previously incorrectly named the acting minister of interior and safety as Lee Sang Min, but should instead have referred to Ko Kidong.