"Pick It Up and It Detonates"... Landmine Alert Issued for "Leaves" Washed Down by Heavy Rains

A landmine alert has been issued for regions bordering North Korea.

The warning comes as concerns grow that landmines buried in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) could be swept downstream by rapid currents following recent heavy rains, which caused the water level of the Imjin River to surge.

Between July 20 and 24, torrential downpours of up to 290 mm lashed areas including Yeoncheon and Paju in Gyeonggi Province.

Combined with the discharge from North Korea's Hwanggang Dam, the water level at Pilseung Bridge on the Imjin River spiked to 10.2 meters on the afternoon of July 21.

This figure comes close to the 12-meter threshold for a crisis response caution stage, marking the second-highest record since August 2020.

The issue is that landmines planted inside the DMZ could be washed away together by these swollen currents.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that they recently detected signs of some lost landmines exploding north of the Military Demarcation Line, noting a high probability that they could flow southward through shared rivers.

[Jang Do-yeong, Public Affairs Director at the Joint Chiefs of Staff : There is a very high possibility that washed-away landmines could flow into our region through southern shared rivers, and an explosion of such mines could cause massive damage.]

Special caution is required particularly for two types of landmines that do not look dangerous on the outside.

The wooden-box landmine, roughly the size of a restaurant wooden chopstick holder, contains about 70 grams of explosives, which is more than three times the amount in a standard anti-personnel mine.

First discovered in civilian areas of Ganghwa Island in 2010, it has been turning up along waters in border regions every year. In August of that year, a man in his 40s returning home after fishing in Yeoncheon was killed when he picked up one of these mines and it detonated.

The leaf-shaped landmine, about the size of a mobile phone, first appeared in 2024. Military authorities estimate that North Korea floated them down using heavy rains in retaliation against anti-North Korea leaflets.

It contains about 40 grams of explosives, packing a destructive force between that of an anti-personnel mine and a wooden-box landmine.

The possibility that small landmines buried south of the Military Demarcation Line have been washed away cannot be ruled out either.

In 2020, an anti-personnel mine was discovered at a park along the Han River in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, and in 2021, a man in his 50s was injured when the same type of landmine exploded at the Janghang Wetland in the Han River estuary.

The Yeoncheon County office repeatedly warned of the risk of landmines washing away along riverbanks in border areas due to torrential rains, urging people that if they find any objects suspected of being washed-away landmines, they should never touch them and instead report them immediately to a military unit or dial 112.

Reported by Sim Yeong-gu | Video by Na Hong-hee | Graphics by Lee Jeong-ju | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.