3 Soldiers Wounded, Mine Found: South Korea Probes DMZ Blasts
South Korean authorities are working to determine what triggered the two explosions, which struck south of the Military Demarcation Line dividing the Korean Peninsula last Monday. Two of the soldiers suffered serious wounds; the third was lightly hurt.
An official with the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said troops at the scene reported an object resembling a North Korean wooden-box mine near the point of detonation.
“We received testimony that (what the troops witnessed) was similar to a wooden-box land mine,” the official said.
Accounts from witnesses differ, the JCS said. Some described the device as looking like a wooden-box mine but seemingly made of plastic, while one witness believed it was another type altogether.
A joint probe by the South Korean military and the UN Command, which administers the border zone, began Sunday. Investigators were unable to reach the blast site before operations halted at sunset.
Meanwhile, the National Forensic Service is examining mine fragments and explosive residue recovered from the soldiers' protective gear.
Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul said investigators do not yet have sufficient evidence to identify the mine type.
Should the devices prove to be North Korean, investigators will then need to establish whether rain carried them south or whether they were intentionally planted. Deliberate placement would breach the armistice agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
It would not be the first such incident: North Korean wooden-box mines detonated on the South Korean side of the DMZ in 2015, gravely injuring two soldiers.
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