As North Korea launches missiles and artillery, this island's residents are terrified

Loudspeakers in a village of Yeonpyeong island, near the Northern Limit Line sea boundary with North Korea, on Jan. 6, a day after North Korean shelling. North Korea fired an artillery barrage near two South Korean border islands on Jan. 5, Seoul's defense ministry said, prompting a live-fire drill by the South's military. (Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images)

YEONPYEONG, South Korea — As tensions between North and South Korea mount, inhabitants of this South Korean island just 7 miles from North Korea's west coast have special reasons to be jittery.

North Korea has lately been lobbing projectiles into the Yellow Sea, known in South Korea as the West Sea, at a frantic pace, including two salvos of cruise missiles (another salvo was fired eastward) and around 350 artillery rounds in the past month.

And Pyongyang recently reiterated that it considers the maritime border just a mile north of Yeonpyeong illegal, sparking concerns that the island could once again become a flashpoint.