south-korea.jpg
South Korean special police participate in an anti-terror drill at the Olympic Staduim on Tuesday.  Getty Images

As global tensions reportedly keep the interest level low for February's PyeongChang Olympics, South Korea is simulating terrorist attacks and undergoing emergency defense drills in advance of the Winter Games, according to Reuters.

After recent months in which the United States and North Korea, a neighbor to the PyeongChang Games, have exchanged public barbs, firemen and police personnel were among more than 400 South Koreans who hosted security simulations on Tuesday. The drills, as Reuters reported, come months before at least 5,000 armed forces are set to head Winter Olympics security and are meant "to prepare against terror attacks ranging from a hostage situation, a vehicle ramming a stadium and a bomb-attached to a drone."

A SWAT team was tasked with shooting down a mock drone during the drills, as NBC News video shows. And in other simulations, gunmen pretended to take hostages on a bus before driving the vehicle toward a building. Explosions were also rigged and set off during the security procedures.

Ramping up security is commonplace for Olympics host sites, but public concern over North Korea -- specifically the state's nuclear and missile tests -- has clouded some headlines leading up to the Winter Games. The United States, for example, at one point said it was an "open question" if American athletes would even travel to PyeongChang because of the tensions. And recent reports, including one from Financial Times, also suggest that South Korea has asked the U.S. not to conduct any joint military exercises in the area until after the Olympics so as not to "provoke" North Korea.