Unexploded Mine Spotted at DMZ Blast Site; 3 Soldiers Wounded
The South Korean military is probing the cause of two explosions that struck last Monday south of the Military Demarcation Line dividing the two Koreas. Two soldiers were seriously wounded, and a third suffered minor injuries.
A Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) official said troops reported seeing an object resembling a North Korean wooden-box mine close to the blast site.
“We received testimony that (what the troops witnessed) was similar to a wooden-box land mine,” the official said.
According to the JCS, some witnesses said the object looked like a wooden-box mine but appeared to be made of plastic, while another believed it was a different type.
The South Korean military and the UN Command, which oversees the border area, opened a joint investigation on Sunday but could not reach the blast site before operations ended at sunset.
The National Forensic Service is analyzing mine fragments and explosive residue recovered from the soldiers' protective equipment.
Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul said investigators do not yet have enough evidence to identify the type of mine involved.
Should the mines prove to be North Korean, investigators will try to determine whether rain washed them south or whether they were deliberately planted. Deliberate placement would violate the armistice agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
North Korean wooden-box mines also detonated on the South Korean side of the DMZ in 2015, seriously wounding two soldiers.
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