Since the latest blitz began late Saturday, Pyongyang has sent an estimated 330 balloons carrying bags of trash into the South, Seoul's military said.
"So far, about 80 have fallen in our area and nothing is currently being identified in the air," the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Sunday in a statement.
"Our analysis shows there were no substances that were harmful to safety," it said, adding that the latest batch of balloons contained waste paper and plastic.
The Seoul city government, as well as officials in surrounding Gyeonggi province, sent out a text alert to residents on Saturday, warning about the balloons.
"North Korea is making another low-class provocation with trash balloons against our civilian areas," wrote Seoul mayor Oh Se-hoon in a Facebook post.
In recent weeks, activists in the South have floated dozens of balloons bearing K-pop, dollar bills and anti-Kim Jong Un propaganda northwards, infuriating Pyongyang which has retaliated in kind.
Pyongyang sent nearly a thousand balloons carrying cigarette butts and toilet paper across the border early June, before calling off its campaign, but it restarted Saturday in response to new launches last week by the activists, which Seoul's government is legally powerless to prevent.
A South Korean group called "Fighters for Free North Korea" said it had sent 10 balloons with thumb drives containing K-pop music and 200,000 leaflets condemning Kim's rule this week.
Another group of North Korean defectors also said they had sent 10 balloons on Friday with 100 radios, 200,000 anti-Pyongyang leaflets, and thumb drives containing a speech by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
In response to the launches, President Yoon fully suspended a 2018 tension-reducing military deal with the North. The move will allow the South to resume live fire drills and restart loudspeaker propaganda campaigns along the border.
Seoul's National Security Council was meeting Sunday to discuss the latest balloon launches.
South Korea on alert for more trash balloons from the North
Seoul (AFP) June 8, 2024 -
South Korea's military said it was on alert for possibly more trash-carrying balloons arriving from North Korea on Sunday, a potential response to the propaganda balloons sent this week by South Korean activists.
North Korea sent hundreds of balloons in two waves last week with bags of trash into the South, describing them as a response to anti-Pyongyang propaganda balloons sent the other way by South Korean activists.
Pyongyang announced a halt to the balloons on Sunday but days later, a South Korean group called "Fighters for Free North Korea" said it had sent 10 balloons with USB thumb drives containing K-pop music and 200,000 leaflets against leader Kim Jong Un.
The South Korean military is "closely monitoring with vigilance" because of "the possibility of more trash balloons descending around tomorrow", its spokesperson told AFP on Saturday.
North Korea had said it would respond with "wastepaper and rubbish" a hundred times the amount if more South Korean leaflets were sent.
Another group, comprising North Korean defectors, said it had sent 10 balloons on Friday with 200,000 anti-Pyongyang leaflets, 100 radios, and USB thumb drives containing a speech by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Jang Se-yul, the leader of the group, told AFP on Saturday his organisation will not stop its campaign, "whether Kim Jong Un sends trash-carrying balloons again or not".
The North Korean balloons last week landed in a number of locations in the South, and were found to be carrying garbage such as cigarette butts, cardboard scrap and waste batteries.
In response to the balloons, South Korea on Tuesday completely suspended a 2018 military deal with the North, which was meant to reduce tensions between the neighbours.
Authorities in Seoul have condemned the North Korean balloons as a "low-class" act and threatened countermeasures that it said Pyongyang would find "unendurable".
- Duelling propaganda -
Activists in South Korea have long sent balloons northwards, filled with anti-Pyongyang propaganda, cash, rice, and Korean TV series on USB thumb drives.
These have always infuriated North Korea, whose government is extremely sensitive about its people gaining access to South Korean pop culture.
Kuensaem, another South Korean activist group, told AFP that it threw 500 plastic bottles into the sea on Friday near the border with North Korea.
The bottles were filled with rice, cash and a USB drive with a South Korean TV series "Crash Landing on You" -- which features a romance between a wealthy South Korean heiress and a North Korean army officer.
"We were just doing what we've been doing for a long time to help North Koreans who are starving," the group's leader Park Jung-oh told AFP Saturday.
Tensions over the duelling propaganda have boiled over in dramatic fashion in the past.
In 2020, blaming the anti-North leaflets, Pyongyang unilaterally cut off all official military and political communication links with Seoul and blew up a disused inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border.
Last year, South Korea's Constitutional Court struck down a 2020 law that criminalised the sending of anti-Pyongyang propaganda, calling it an undue limitation on free speech.
Experts say there are now no legal grounds for the government to stop activists from sending balloons into North Korea.
South Korea's unification ministry said on Saturday that the issue is "being approached in consideration" of the 2023 court decision.
Kim Jong Un's powerful sister Kim Yo Jong mocked South Korea for complaining about the balloons last week, saying North Koreans were simply exercising their freedom of expression.
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