An undetonated land mine has been spotted near the site of two explosions inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that wounded three South Korean soldiers last week, according to South Korean military officials.
The military is investigating two explosions that occurred last Monday south of the Military Demarcation Line separating North and South Korea. Two South Korean soldiers were seriously wounded, while a third suffered minor injuries.
A South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) official said troops reported seeing an object near the explosion site resembling a North Korean wooden-box land mine.
“We received testimony that [what the troops witnessed] was similar to a wooden-box land mine,” the official said.
Witness accounts differed over the object’s precise appearance. Some soldiers said it resembled a wooden-box mine but appeared to be made of plastic, while another believed it could have been a different type of explosive device.
The South Korean military and the United Nations Command, which oversees the border area, launched a joint investigation on Sunday. However, investigators were unable to reach the actual blast site before operations had to end at sunset.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s National Forensic Service is analysing fragments of the mine and explosive residue recovered from the soldiers’ protective equipment.
Defence Minister Kang Shin-chul said investigators currently do not have sufficient evidence to determine exactly what type of mine caused the explosions.
If the devices are confirmed to have originated in North Korea, investigators will seek to determine how they reached the South Korean side of the DMZ.
One possibility is that the mines were displaced and carried south by heavy rainfall. Investigators will also examine whether they were deliberately planted, which would constitute a violation of the armistice agreement that halted fighting in the 1950–53 Korean War.
A similar incident occurred in 2015, when North Korean wooden-box mines exploded on the South Korean side of the DMZ, seriously injuring two South Korean soldiers.