Wednesday's launches marked the first time a North Korean missile had flown over the de facto maritime border separating the two Koreas since the Korean War ended in an armistice in 1953.
As bereaved families and friends struggle to make sense of a Halloween crowd crush that killed 156 people in South Korea's capital, their grief is mixed with anger about officials' failure to employ crowd controls in a small nightlife district swarmed with tens of thousands of partiers.
The raids by South Korea's National Police Agency on local police came a day after the national agency acknowledged that Seoul police failed to act for hours despite calls warning of a swelling crowd.
Police have assembled the crumpled shoes — part of the many personal objects left by victims and survivors of the tragedy — in hopes that the owners, or their friends and family, will retrieve them.
South Korea's police chief admitted "a heavy responsibility" for failing to prevent a recent crowd surge that killed more than 150 people during Halloween festivities in Seoul.
As the police launch an investigation, the country is mourning the victims of Saturday night's deadly stampede in Itaewon. Eyewitnesses are lamenting the lack of crowd control measures.
South Korean officials say at least 26 foreign nationals were among the more than 150 people killed in the incident in Seoul's Itaewon district. Many were young adults celebrating Halloween.
In June, the mega-popular K-pop group had already announced a hiatus. On Monday, the band's label and management company announced that all seven BTS members will be enlisting in the military.
North Korea's recent barrage of missile launches were the simulated use of its tactical battlefield nuclear weapons to "wipe out" potential South Korean and U.S. targets, state media reported Monday
A malfunctioning South Korean ballistic missile blew up as it plowed into the ground Wednesday during a live-fire drill, panicking and confusing residents of the coastal city of Gangneung.
South Korea called an emergency National Security Council meeting where members denounced the launch as a clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country will never abandon the nuclear weapons it needs to counter the United States, which he accused of pushing to weaken the North's defenses.
While Washington and Seoul describe their exercises as defensive, North Korea portrays them as invasion rehearsals and has used them to justify its nuclear weapons and missiles development.
Nighttime temperatures could double in some eastern Asian cities, according to a study researchers say is the first to estimate the impact of hotter nights on climate change-related mortality risks.
