Thick black smoke billows as a building is blown apart into pieces.

Debris scatters in all directions through the air.

This was the moment when North Korea blew up the Inter-Korean Joint Liaison Office in the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in June 2020.

A South Korean court ruled today (September 16) that North Korea must pay approximately 44.6 billion won in compensation for the property damage inflicted on the Republic of Korea by this action.

Civil Settlement Division 46 of the Seoul Central District Court ruled entirely in favor of the plaintiff in a damage suit filed by the South Korean government against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The court ordered North Korea to pay the full claimed amount of 44,626,417,022 won plus interest, and to bear the litigation costs as well.

This marks the first-ever lawsuit filed by the government against North Korean authorities, reaching a conclusion three years and three months after the suit was filed in June 2023.

The Inter-Korean Joint Liaison Office opened in the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in 2018 following the April 27 Panmunjom Declaration by the leaders of the two Koreas.

It was established as a permanent hub so that the two Koreas would not need to arrange separate meeting places and communication routes every time they discussed issues, serving as a facility where inter-Korean authorities resided to carry out exchange and cooperation work.

However, on June 16, 2020, North Korea unilaterally blew up the liaison office, taking issue with anti-Pyongyang leaflet distribution by defector groups.

In response, the government filed a lawsuit demanding compensation for the damage suffered by the liaison office building and the adjacent Gaeseong Industrial Complex General Support Center.

Because it was difficult to directly deliver court documents to North Korea, this trial proceeded through public notice service.

Public notice service is a procedure where the court posts documents on its website and deems them to have been delivered to the opposing party.

Since North Korea did not respond to the trial at all, there is practically no possibility that the government will actually be able to collect the compensation and legal costs, even if the ruling becomes final.

Reported by Kim Jiuk | Video by Seo Byeong-wook | Design by Lee Jeong-ju | Produced by SBS Digital News