Possible big news coming out of South Korea:

South Korea scrambled naval vessels to western waters near the disputed maritime border with North Korea late Friday after an explosion ripped a hole in the bottom of a military ship, officials and news reports said.

South Korea’s YTN TV network said the government, which met in emergency session in an underground bunker after the incident, was investigating whether the sinking was due to a torpedo attack by the North.

The 1,200-ton ship — reported to have 104 crew on board — began sinking off the coast of South Korean-controlled Baengnyeong Island close to North Korea around 10:45 p.m. (1345 GMT, 9:45 a.m. EDT), an official at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

Update: The ship is the PCC-772 Cheonan, a Pohang class corvette.

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Posted by Christopher Albon in Navy
Tags: Noth Korea, South Korea
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• UltimaRatioReg

  Latest reports state that an nK attack was unlikely. Interesting to see what the cause of the hull damage was.

  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36052055/ns/world_news-asiapacific/

• http://warandhealth.com/ Christopher Albon

  That is good for regional security, but bad for the South Korean Navy… spontaneously sinking ships are never good.

• YNSN

  It is more than just a engineering casualty. Unless the state of their Navy is just that bad. I’ve seen and KDX III up close, it is unlikely something just went wrong aboard.

• Ellie Light

  Residents on a nearby island reported 10 minutes of firing. I suppose they were fighting off a flock of “bird” for 10 minutes. I am unaware of any South Korean recon vehicles that could have determined the presence of any North Korean assets nor does the US have a permanent recon bird over this area as far as I am aware so why are space imagery reports being reported by unidentified sources?

  The funniest thing I have seen attributes the sinking to Korean War era mines. Yup they lost many ships in the North Sea to WWI mines in the sixties and even more to WWII mines in the nineties. What a crock. But given our president I doubt the folks in Souel have any confidence in the resolve of the Master Cylinder. I f anything he will aid the North.

• Derrick

  http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100521/world/skorea_nkorea_military_naval

  Looks like this ship was intentionally torpedoed by the North…it’ll be interesting to see what this makes at the UN security council…