South Korea's military and the United Nations Command opened a joint investigation into an explosion near the Demilitarised Zone separating the two Koreas. Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff announced the inquiry as opposition lawmakers demanded transparent findings about the device and its possible origin.
A team of about 40 officials searched the area around the western-sector blast site on September 26, five days after the explosion. The inspection was designed to preserve physical evidence and establish the position and characteristics of the suspected landmine before further work began.
The military said additional searches would be needed to verify what caused the detonation and promised to disclose the final outcome publicly. That commitment followed opposition questions about whether the device might have come from North Korea, a possibility that investigators had not established.
Three South Korean soldiers were injured on September 21 while clearing a patrol route inside the heavily fortified western DMZ. President Lee Jae Myung said a landmine caused the explosion, but the inquiry must still determine the mine's provenance and the circumstances that placed it there.
Mine explosions and other blasts remain a recurring danger inside and around the buffer zone. Devices left from earlier periods, as well as mines suspected of drifting from their original locations, have periodically wounded military personnel on both sides of the inter-Korean boundary.
South Korean media said North Korean forces resumed fortification activity near the border in March, including laying mines and building fences. That recent work forms part of the investigative context, but the available evidence did not permit the explosion to be attributed to Pyongyang.
The inquiry therefore carries both an immediate safety purpose and a broader political burden. Establishing the type, age and route of the device could guide patrol procedures, while a public account is intended to prevent unresolved suspicion from hardening into an unsupported accusation.
