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Aug. 1 (UPI) -- A North Korean soldier defected to the South after he was captured floating down the Imjin River at night, South Korea's joint chiefs of staff said Thursday. The North Korean citizen, who was seen drifting in the current of the river at 11:38 p.m. on Wednesday, was first detected by a South Korean thermal observation device, or TOD, at the military demarcation line, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.
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Detection took place at a point about 750 meters south of the MDL. South Korean guards on duty saw what appeared to be a "small ball-like" object floating down the river, Seoul said. Later on, guards identified the object as the head of a man floating above water.
At 11:56 p.m., South Korean military authorities confirmed the object under surveillance was an "unidentified person." Steps were taken afterward to secure the individual and identify him, Seoul's joint chiefs of staff said.
South Korean soldiers on sentry duty may have initially had trouble identifying the defecting North Korean man on an evening with no moonlight.
"At the time, the area was covered with fog, cloudy and rainy, with poor visibility," a joint chiefs source told Yonhap. "Soldiers carried out the [rescue] by the book."
Local news service Newsis reported after the North Korean soldier was identified, he stated his desire to defect to the South.
South Korean authorities did not reveal the rank of the soldier, or whether he was an officer.
The defection marks the first time in eight months a North Korean national has crossed the militarized border to escape to the South.
In 2017, a North Korean soldier who defected to the South reportedly was found to have antibodies in his bloodstream, a sign he was either exposed to or vaccinated for anthrax.
North Korea has been suspected of developing biological weapons after the regime publicized the works of the Pyongyang Biological Technology Research Institute in 2015, run by the Korean People's Army Unit 810.
