Power transmission towers near border collapse after North Korea cuts wires

“On Friday, several transmission towers north of the Gyeongui Line military demarcation line (MDL) collapsed,” the ministry said in a press release.

According to the released video, towers 36 and 37 in the North Korean section became unbalanced and fell over after the wires were cut.

The top part of tower 35 also collapsed after the wires were removed.

The video was filmed with military surveillance equipment on Friday, according to the ministry.

The steel transmission towers are built at intervals of several hundred meters along the Gyeongui Line road connecting the stretch just north of the MDL that North Korea blew up on Oct. 15 to the Kaesong Industrial Complex.

There are a total of 48 steel towers from Munsan in the South to the North Korean Peace Substation, 15 of which are on the North’s side.

These transmission facilities, built by the Korea Electric Power Corporation, were connected from the South to the North in December 2006 and played a role in supplying electricity to the Kaesong complex.

However, the power supply was cut off in February 2016 due to North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in January the same year.

Power supply was partially resumed afterward, but has been suspended since North Korea blew up the inter-Korean joint liaison office in the Kaesong Industrial Complex in June 2020.

Amid the ongoing measures to cut off the two countries, North Korea began removing the transmission tower wires on Nov. 24 of this year.

“Among the transmission towers in the North, tower 34, which is closest to the South, remains intact, while the upper part of tower 35 is bent and towers 36 to 38 have collapsed,” a South Korean government official said. “Transmission towers 34 to 39 have had their wires removed, while the rest still have wires attached.”

Regarding the reason for the collapse of the towers, the official explained that “it is presumed that the transmission towers collapsed because they could not support the weight of the severed wires.”

The Unification Ministry’s video also shows a worker falling while removing the wires.

The North Korean worker who fell was in the middle section of a transmission tower, appearing to be 10 meters (33 feet) high, when the accident occurred, colliding with a lower part of the tower on the way down.

“This clearly shows the poor human rights situation of North Korean workers who work haphazardly without even the minimum safety measures in place,” said a Unification Ministry official.