According to the BBC, a South Korean navy ship with about 100 personnel on board is sinking off the west coast near North Korea, possibly due to a torpedo attack. The report also says the South Korean ship had fired shots toward an unidentified ship from the North.
Final update. The BBC is now reporting that the cause may have been local to the ship which sunk, an accidental detonation of a depth charge, they say. This class of carrier doesnt carry depth charges, though. I guess we'll see - if an escalation is planned, then it will likely be in progress quite soon, it's breaking day there right about now.
I'll try to edit this as time allows and as the news is updated. See the comments below for background and good insight. The poll is intended to try to keep this light, with hope that escalation is still a remote possibility. I regret that some have found it offensive.
Earlier updates:
Update1: several other news outlets are now reporting the incident, but very little in the way of more detail. Important to understand that this is still a possible attack from the North, nothing has been confirmed yet! The BBC article has been updated to report that the South Korean government has called an emergency meeting.
Update2: According to korean news, the SK President has ordered the military to focus on resue efforts. It remains unclear whether NK was involved.
Update3: Three hours since the incident and not one single confirmation. Locals reporting from Korea seem convinced that there is a full new blackout regarding the incident, with the exception of reports coming in that at least half of the sailors on board have been saved, even though the ship itself has exploded and sunk.
Update4 (not yet worthy of header): Brett Baier (yes, yes, fox news) now reports that two ships were fired upon in his twitter feed
Update5: Here's the latest on North Korea's threat just yesterday to deliver nuke strikes because of the US and SK's contingency plans for instability.
That'll be the last update for awhile, since the poll here seems to have relegated this diary to the backwoods. Hopefully, things will calm down a bit.