South Korea’s military procurement agency said Monday that it had completed the deployment of an integrated monitoring system to reinforce the defense of vulnerable areas along the country’s eastern, western and southern coasts.

Before deploying the 250 or so pieces of coastal monitoring equipment including thermal observation devices, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration carried out consultations with some 2,000 local residents about the deployment over the past 18 months, officials said.

Following the consultations, the state agency established a 500-kilometer communications line along the coastal areas to install the monitoring and surveillance systems.

The efforts to improve coastal defense came amid relentless coastal infiltration threats from North Korea.

“This is a deployment of an integrated coastal monitoring program, which is connected to the existing military equipment to detect, identify and track possible infiltrations by enemies. Should enemies encroach upon our coasts, we can also defeat them with our mobile strike forces,” officials said.

“The integrated monitoring system will help improve the current monitoring program manually operated by troops. This will also enable coastal units to share their intelligence in real time.”

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)