Chinese warships are salvaging North Korea’s crashed satellite rocket, South Korea says
- The rocket came down in the sea at a point where the exclusive economic zones of China and South Korea meet, according to the South Korean military
- ‘We understand that some Chinese warships are active in that open sea’ near the crash site, said a spokesman for Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff
The South Korean military is carrying out its own search for wreckage of the North Korean space vehicle that plunged into waters near the west coast island of Eocheongdo.
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South Korea has pulled some debris from the water including a large cylindrical object.
“Regarding the Chinese vessels, a salvage operation is currently being carried out at a point 200km (124 miles) west of Eocheongdo, and the waters are open sea,” Lee Sung-jun, spokesman for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a regular briefing on Monday.
“We understand that some Chinese warships are active in that open sea,” Lee said, adding that there were “no disturbances” around the Chinese activity that required any response from the South Korean side.
His comments came after NK News, a Seoul-based website monitoring North Korea, reported on Friday that Chinese vessels have intensified patrols in the Yellow Sea where debris from North Korea’s failed satellite launch fell.