Smoke rises from an area of the DMZ separating North and South Korea, near Kaesong. South and North Korea blocked access to their Kaesong joint industrial zone as a fire broke out near a cross-border road and spread across the heavily militarised frontier, officials said.
DPA/Reuters/AFP/Seoul
Firefighters from North and South Korea were battling a blaze yesterday in the border area between the two countries, a news report said.
The fire started about 11am (0200 GMT) near the North Korean side of the border, and by the mid-afternoon had spread as far as the southern side of the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) near Paju, north of Seoul, Yonhap News Agency reported.
The fire appeared to have started on a farm, Yonhap quoted military officials as saying. This could not be clarified.
More than 50 South Korean firefighters were reportedly helping to put out the fire, but strong winds had made controlling the blaze more difficult.
The DMZ, said to be the most heavily-armed border in the world, is guarded by some 2mn troops on both sides.
The two Koreas are still technically at war following the 1950-53 Korean War.
The fire has prompted a suspension of cross-border movements into a jointly-run factory park in the North.
Access to the area is normally restricted.
An official at the South’s unification ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said that due to the fire South Korean workers were restricted from going in and out of Kaesong factory park, which lies in the North just over the border.
Some 54,000 North Korean workers are employed across 125 South Korean firms in the Kaesong complex, which first opened in 2004 as a rare symbol of cross-border co-operation and which lies just north of the border.
