Seoul: It seems North Korea is in one of its most aggressive moods, even ready for a war with its neighbour, South Korea.
News Agency AFP reports that North Korea fired more than 10 missiles Wednesday, with one of them hitting close to South Korea's waters.
The South Korean military said that for the first time since the two nations were formed at end of Korean War of 1953, a North Korean missile landed close to South Korea's territorial waters.
North Korea's latest armed demonstration comes as South Korea and the US stage joint air drills involving hundreds of warplanes of both nations.
A top North Korean official Pak Jong Chon called the largest-ever air drills by South Korean and the US named "Vigilant Storm" as "aggressive and provocative".
Ahead of the Vigilant Storm air drills there were 12 days of amphibious naval exercises.
Following North Korea's missile attack, President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea said it was "effectively a territorial invasion".
The missile attack that came out of the blue caused panic in South Korea.
Air raid warnings were sounded as well as flashing warning on national TV for residents of Ulleungdo to " evacuate to the nearest underground shelter", as per the report.
The North Korean missile that crossed the de facto maritime border between the two countries was a short range ballistic one.
Afterwards, the residents of the island of Ulleungdo were asked to seek shelter in bunkers, according to the report.
North Korea is obviously threatened by the presence of the US warplanes' circling over the skies alongside South Korean planes and nothing seems to be closer home to the communist nation.
Cheong Seong-chang, a researcher at the Sejong Institute told AFP that North Korea seemed to have staged the its most aggressive armed demonstration against the South in protest against the joint US-South Korea drill.
This is not the first time North Korea is flexing its muscles. In March 2010, 46 sailors of South Korean naval vessel Cheonan were killed after a North Korean submarine torpedoed it.