President says South Korea must be ready

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President Lee Myung-Bak said on Tuesday that South Korea must be ready for a surprise North Korean attack, as well as deadly natural and nuclear disasters.

His comments came as South Korea conducted a nationwide afternoon drill to ensure the public was fully prepared for bombings by North Korean jet fighters and artillery deployed along the tense border.

"Japan is responding in a very calm manner thanks to repeated exercises for decades," Lee said during an inspection of South Korea's national disaster centre in Seoul, in the wake of the quake-tsunami that hit Japan on Friday.

South Korea needs "thorough training", Lee said after monitoring a drill held in several areas along the east coast to simulate an evacuation in the event of quakes and tsunamis.

Lee, who returned on Tuesday from a trip to the United Arab Emirates, said South Korea should enhance awareness on the risks of nuclear power plants, referring to explosions at an earthquake-hit atomic plant in Japan.

South Korea operates 20 reactors which generate some 35 per cent of its electricity needs, and plans to build 12 new nuclear reactors in the next 14 years.

The evacuation drill was part of a country-wide civil defence exercise to guard against a possible attack by North Korea.

Traffic was halted in central Seoul, which is just 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the border with the North, with pedestrians being ushering into shelters after sirens wailed nationwide to signal the start of the 15-minute exercise.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said 16 jet fighters were mobilised for the drill.

It said 177 military vehicles were deployed in Seoul and other cities for the first time since a civil defence law was passed in 1975.

The North bombarded a border island on November 23, killing four people including two civilians. It was the first attack on civilian-populated areas since the 1950-53 war.

South Korea, which has remained technically at war with the communist North since their conflict 60 years ago, usually conducts much smaller drills involving the sounding of sirens several times a year.

The North's shelling in November prompted South Korea to renovate some 25,700 state-designated shelters.