YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea, Dec. 18 (Yonhap) -- Fears of a fresh North Korean attack resurfaced Saturday among residents of South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island, which the North bombarded last month, as the South prepared to stage a live-fire drill in the coming days.

   Scores of residents who stayed on Yeonpyeong despite last month's attack were anxious and worried that the drill would trigger a new attack, as North Korea warned it would strike back with "deadlier" firepower if the South went ahead with its exercise off the front-line island.

   The North shelled Yeonpyeong on Nov. 23, killing two civilians and two marines.

   "The situation makes me too nervous to stay, since North Korea may fire artillery at any time in the near future," Kang Yeong-gil, a 67-year-old farmer, said. "As soon as this rice crop gets sold in the government procurement, I will leave."

   Residents closely monitored television news for further developments, bracing for any sign of a possible North Korean provocation.

   "I couldn't sleep last night. The day-to-day situation is so unstable I can't live here anymore," a resident, who identified himself by his surname Kim, said.

   Some were angry over the South Korean military's decision to hold the one-day exercise despite North Korea's warning of a full-scale war. The drill was expected to start as early as this weekend but the military decided to move it back a day or two because of bad weather, a military source said Saturday.

   The residents demanded the military try putting itself in their shoes.

   "Honestly I don't want our military to go ahead with the drill. It seems as if our government is watching the fire on the other side of the river," a resident surnamed Ko said.

   A skirmish briefly erupted between some of the jittery Yeonpyeong residents and several North Korean defectors who had sailed to the island to send anti-North Korean propaganda fliers across the border. Pyongyang finds such propaganda fliers highly provocative.

   hkim@yna.co.kr
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