South Korean regions bordering North Korea need hundreds more shelters to house evacuees in emergency situations such as the North's provocations, government data showed Tuesday.



According to the data compiled by the Ministry of Security and Public Administration, and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the country's 15 regions in the western port city of Incheon and the northern parts of the Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces that border North Korea lack a combined 287 shelters to accommodate their residents in emergency situations.



"Most of the regions without such shelters are small towns that do not have any existing underground facilities, which could be easily turned into emergency shelters," said an NEMA official.



"To guarantee the safety and security of the people there, we've been discussing with relevant government bodies such as the finance ministry to secure budget for their construction," he added.



Some 400 million won ($350,263) is required to build one shelter, the home affairs ministry said, meaning the country needs 114.8 billion won to meet the demand in the border towns.



In the wake of the communist country's 2010 provocations of torpedoing South Korea's warship the Cheonan and the shelling of the Western border island of Yeonpyeong, the government set up 56 evacuation facilities in 2011 and 17 in 2012, with construction of 20 more under way.



Tensions have been escalating on the Korean Peninsula over Pyongyang's near-daily threats of war, particularly after the North's Feb. 12 nuclear test, which earned the country fresh U.N.



sanctions. Joint annual U.S.-South Korean military drills in March also contributed to the North's threats.



Raising the stakes further, Pyongyang withdrew all of its workers from the Kaesong Industrial Complex on Tuesday. The North had previously halted movements to and from the North Korean border town on three occasions in March 2009 when Seoul and Washington conducted military exercises. (Yonhap News)







