with firefighters and paramedics, to help with the recovery and relief effort. 2,000 boxes of emergency relief materials and more than 3,500 relief kits and boxes of food were sent to help residents recover. The attack started widespread fires on the island. According to the local county office, 70 percent of the island's forests and fields were burned and 21 houses and warehouses and eight public buildings were destroyed in the bombardment. Some of the public buildings were formerly military structures, leading the South Korean military to believe the attack was planned from old maps. North Korea states that it suffered no military casualties. However, Lee Hong-gi, the Director of Operations of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), claimed that as a result of the South Korean retaliation "there may be a considerable number of North Korean casualties". A North Korean defector who had served in an artillery battery, however, stated that the South had likely failed to destroy the North Korean artillery batteries due to its slow response. South Korean media reported that 5–10 North Korean soldiers had been killed and 30 wounded, and the National Intelligence Service suggests damage to North Korean troops had been considerable during the South Korean counter-battery fire. Satellite images released by STRATFOR cast doubt on effectiveness of South Korean artillery and damage dealt to North as asserted by JCS and NIS, with no signs of any North Korean rocket launchers being destroyed. Similarly, despite targeting the barracks, there were little signs that the underground facilities suffered significant damage. Political and financial impact The South Korean government called the attack a "clear armed provocation." It suspended interchanges with the North, cancelling inter-Korean Red Cross talks and banning visits to the jointly operated Kaesong Industrial Region. The main South Korean political parties condemned the North's attack. A spokesman for the ruling Grand National Party said: "It is impossible to hold our rage toward the North's shelling of the Yeonpyeong Island. North Korea must be held accountable for all the losses." The chairman of the opposition Democratic Party urged the North Koreans to "stop all provocation that threaten the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula". He called for "the two Koreas to begin talks to prevent the situation from worsening" and urged the government to protect the peace and safety of South Koreans. On 25 November, South Korea's defense minister, Kim Tae-young, announced