North Korea on Wednesday sent balloons presumed to be carrying trash toward South Korea again, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, in what marked its third consecutive balloon launch campaign this week alone.

The JCS said the balloons appeared to be travelling in a southeastern direction from the northern part of Gyeonggi Province that surrounds Seoul.

It advised the public to not touch fallen balloons and report them to the military or police.

With the latest launch, North Korea is estimated to have launched more than 2,000 trash-carrying balloons over seven occasions since May 28 in a tit-for-tat move against anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent by North Korean defectors and activists in the South.

Wednesday's balloon campaign came after North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile, possibly a hypersonic missile, toward the East Sea earlier in the day. The missile exploded mid-air.