Seoul, Jan 5 (IANS): Civilians on South Korea's border islands of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong were ordered to evacuate to shelters on Friday after North Korea fired some 200 artillery shells into waters off its western coast earlier in the morning, Seoul's military said.

The emergency evacuation order was issued at 12.02 p.m. and again at 12.30 p.m. (local time) on Yeongpyeong at the request of the South Korean military, according to the Ongjin County office in the western port city of Incheon.

"We announced the evacuation after receiving a call from a military unit saying it was carrying out a maritime strike on Yeongpyeong Island as it has a situation with a North Korean provocation," Yonhap News Agency quoted a county official as saying.

The official added that there were no reports of casualties.

A passenger ferry, scheduled to depart from Incheon for Yeonpyeong at 1 p.m., was moored due to the evacuation order, according to officials.

A similar alert was issued for the western border island of Baengnyeong around the same time, reports Yonhap News Agency.

South Korea's military said it detected the artillery firings from Jangsan Cape and Deungsan Cape, both in the North's southwestern coastal areas, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

The shells fired by North Korea splashed into the maritime buffer zone north of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto maritime border.

The buffer zone was established under an inter-Korean military accord signed on September 19, 2018, to reduce border tensions.

Last November, North Korea unilaterally scrapped the accord after Seoul partially suspended the deal in protest of Pyongyang's successful launch of a military spy satellite.