South Korea's navy
has launched a salvage operation in the Yellow Sea to retrieve debris
from North Korea's long-range rocket launch, military officials said
Thursday.
The first stage of the North's Unha-3 rocket launched
on Wednesday fell in the sea off the Korean peninsula, while the second
splashed down east of the Philippines.
"Our navy discovered what
appeared to be a part from the first stage of North Korea's rocket in
the Yellow Sea Wednesday afternoon," a defence ministry spokesman told
AFP.
"A salvage operation is now under way to retrieve it," he said, declining to give details.
The
chunk of the debris was found on
the sea bed, some 160 kilometers (100
miles) west of the southwestern port of Gunsan, Yonhap news agency said,
at a depth of around 80 meters (260 feet).
Before its last
rocket launch attempt in April -- which ended in failure -- North Korea
had warned both Japan and South Korea that any effort to salvage debris
from the rocket would be considered an "act of war".
The warning was not repeated before Wednesday's launch.
Pyongyang
said its latest launch was a purely scientific mission aimed at placing
a polar-orbiting earth observation satellite in space.
Most of
the world saw it as a disguised ballistic missile test that violates UN
resolutions imposed after the North's nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.
The
UN Security Council has condemned the launch and warned of possible
measures over what the US called a "highly provocative" act.
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