South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff(JCS) said that North Korea fired hundreds of artillery shells into the East and West Sea buffer zones on Tuesday night.

The JCS said that North Korea fired some 100 artillery rounds from Jangsan Cape in Hwanghae Province into the Yellow Sea from around 10 p.m. Tuesday and another 150 rounds from Jangjon area in Gangwon Province into the East Sea from 11 p.m.

The JCS said the artillery shells fell into the eastern and western buffer zones north of the Northern Limit Line, which were set under a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on reducing military tensions. No shells landed in South Korean waters.

The South Korean military reportedly sent several warning messages to the North, saying that the provocations were a violation of the 2018 agreement and they urged the regime to stop.

The JCS said the continued provocations undermine peace and stability not only on the Korean Peninsula but also in the international community, and they called on Pyongyang to immediately cease such acts.

With this latest incident, North Korea has now violated the 2018 agreement on nine occasions. 

The artillery firing is being viewed as a response to the South Korean military's annual Hoguk exercise, which kicked off on Monday.