Korea's military has discovered suspected land mines in wooden boxes that were believed to have washed from North Korea after heavy rains near the tense Yellow Sea border, a military official said Thursday.
The official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff advised fishermen near the sea border to keep alert and report to nearby police or military units if they detect any objects believed to be such mines.
"We detected that objects believed to be land mines in wooden boxes were floating in the water near the Northern Limit Line," the official said on the condition of anonymity, referring the de-facto Yellow Sea border between the two Koreas.
Since last week, South Korean soldiers have continued to search for North Korean land mines apparently swept here from the North by heavy rains.
In 2010, a South Korean man died when a North Korean land mine in a wooden box he had picked up from a river went off in the border town of Yeoncheon, about 60 kilometers northeast of Seoul.
Torrential rains have been reported north of the border in recent weeks, prompting the North to discharge dam water into rivers flowing to the South.
The two Koreas, which remain technically at war, are divided by the heavily armed border strewn with land mines. (Yonhap)