hankyoreh

Left: A cloud of smoke rises after South Korean fighter jets dropped multiple bombs in error on a village in Gyeonggi’s Pocheon on March 6, 2025. Right: Some of the rubble left behind by the bombing. (courtesy of reader/Yonhap; pool photo)

“If it had been flying any lower, it would have hit us. We’re too scared to even step foot outside,” said Cho Seong-gyun, aged 31, holding out a fragment of cold steel.

Cho sells military supplies in Nogok, a small village in Pocheon, a city in northern Gyeonggi Province.

The metal shard had sliced through the air when a bomb detonated about 300 meters away from Cho’s shop at 10:05 am. The shrapnel passed through the shop’s plastic roof and fell to the floor.

Cho pointed to the hole in the roof. “This roof is pretty tough, but the shrapnel was even tougher. It just cut right through,” Cho said, describing the experience as “scary.”

Evidence of the blast could be seen in the store.

“At first, I thought a war had broken out,” said Cho Jeong-hun, 64, Cho Seong-gyun’s father and the store owner, while describing the incident.

A piece of shrapnel that came flying into Cho Jeong-hun’s military surplus store in Nogok when the bomb dropped on March 6, 2025. (Lee Jun-hee/Hankyoreh)

“There was a huge bang, and then the building shook like an earthquake, while you could hear the rattle of debris raining down. We waited about ten seconds and then went outside to find the air full of smoke and the smell of gunpowder. Based on the direction of the smoke, I assumed that something had blown up in the base. But we soon learned that bombs had fallen from an airplane,” Cho said.

“I’d never imagined this would happen. A truck full of soldiers seems to have been damaged, too. I’m worried the soldiers may have been badly injured,” Cho said.

The blast was caused by bombs dropped in the wrong place by fighter jets during a military exercise.

“Eight MK-82 bombs were dropped abnormally and landed outside of the firing range at 10:04 am on March 6. The bombs were dropped by KF-16 fighter jets participating in live-fire joint exercises with the air force and army,” Korea’s Air Force said after the accident.

The bombs fell on streets near Nangyu Bridge in Nogok. At least 15 civilians were wounded in the blast, two of them severely.

Five houses in the area were damaged, as well as a warehouse, a Catholic church, a greenhouse and a one-ton truck.

The error is being attributed to the pilot inputting the wrong coordinates into the targeting system.

Windows were shattered in buildings near the blast site in Nogok, Gyeonggi Province, on March 6, 2025. (Yonhap)

Locals who saw the blast site said it looked like a warzone.

“When I went to see where the bombs went off, a blanket of smoke covered the area. It was a terrible sight: the church’s door was knocked down, and the roofs had been knocked off two houses,” said An Gyeong-man, 64, who works at a car center about 500 meters away from the site of the bombing.

“There were big holes in the barbed wire fence at the military base, I guess from the bomb, and a truck was sticking out of a big crater,” An said.

The tally of damage could get worse. Houses and stores outside the restricted area where the military and police are doing cleanup work were also damaged in the blast, just like Cho’s store.

Obvious signs of blast damage included cracked vehicle windows and broken glass at nearby houses and stores, including a dry cleaner.

The military and police were deployed to remove the fallen bombs, but locals are still shaking with fear.

“I was parking my car in front of the store when I heard a shrieking sound and then several thuds with massive reverberations. It was so loud I thought an airplane had crashed,” said An Gyeong-man, who describes himself as a native of the area.

“This was all totally unimaginable, and it’s shaken up the whole neighborhood. I’m renting a place on the second story of a building nearby, and my house suffered structural damage from the explosion. The door wouldn’t even open, so I couldn’t get anything to eat. All the glass in my neighbors’ windows is broken.”

Smoke billows upward after the blas on March 6, 2025. (courtesy of Cho Seong-gyun)

The incident has been profoundly shocking both for locals and their friends and family members.

“I was so worried when I heard about the accident that I came over here right away. I heard that my nephew, who lives in a house over there [in the restricted area], is being treated for an injury,” a middle-aged woman who spoke with the Hankyoreh at the scene of the accident.

“I’m in no state of mind to give an interview right now. I need to hurry and see my nephew. I’m really worried about them,” the woman said before hurriedly leaving the area.

While Cho Jeong-hun was describing the aftermath of the bombing, his phone was constantly ringing with friends calling to make sure he hadn’t been hurt.

The military and police have cordoned off the site of the bombing and are working to clear the debris.

There was a constant flow of vehicles from the military, police and emergency services, including bomb disposal vehicles from the Air Force and the police’s special operation unit.

By Lee Jun-hee, staff reporter; Kwon Hyuk-chul, staff reporter

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