The two-story fire station on Mount Kumkang, North Korea, is pictured in this undated photo. (South Korean Ministry of Unification)
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea demolished a South Korean-funded fire station that briefly served tourists at a mountain just north of the border between the two countries, according to the South’s Ministry of Unification.
The two-story fire station on 5,400-foot Mount Kumkang, near North Korea’s eastern coast, was demolished in late April, ministry spokesman Koo Byung-sam said during a news conference Friday.
“The government expresses deep regret over North Korea unilaterally dismantling the fire station and sternly urges the North to immediately suspend all such actions,” the ministry said in a statement that day. “North Korea’s unilateral dismantlement cannot be justified under any pretext …”
Mount Kumkang, or Diamond Mountain, served as a symbol of unity on the Korean Peninsula in the late 1990s.
The two countries allowed South Korean citizens to tour the mountain starting in 1998 to promote inter-Korean relations and economic exchanges. The $1.6 million fire station, funded entirely by South Korea, finished construction on July 8, 2008, to serve the visiting South Koreans, according to the ministry’s statement.
Three days later, North Korean troops shot and killed a 53-year-old South Korean woman they said had exited the tourist zone and entered a restricted area. The South ceased tourist trips to the mountain.
The unification ministry described the shooting as “wrong in the light not only of inter-Korean relations but also of international norms” and urged the North to cooperate in its investigation, according to a statement on Aug. 4, 2008.
The two-story fire station on Mount Kumkang, North Korea, is pictured in this undated photo. (South Korean Ministry of Unification)
“The [South Korean] government cannot allow tourists to visit [Mount Kumkang] unless the case is resolved and tourists’ security is guaranteed,” the ministry said in 2008.
North Korea declined to conduct a joint investigation and blamed the South for the incident, then-South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soon said at the time.
North Korea has demolished other buildings and areas that served South Korean tourists at the mountain, including a golf course. The Haegumgang Hotel, a South Korean-owned floating hotel docked in the North’s eastern coast, was demolished in 2022, according to the unification ministry.
South and North Korean officials also held talks at the mountain to reunite families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. The South Korean building that hosted the reunions appeared intact as of Friday, Koo said during that day’s news conference.
Pyongyang has destroyed other reconciliatory symbols amid its strained relations with the South. The two Koreas in December scrapped their five-year military deconfliction agreement after the North’s launched a military reconnaissance satellite the previous month.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un described Seoul as Pyongyang’s “primary foe” and proposed destroying structures that represented reunification, according to a report from the state-run Korean Central News Agency in January.
Satellite images obtained in January by Planet Labs and NK News revealed the communist regime demolished the Monument to the Three Charters for National Reunification, a 98-foot-tall, granite symbol of peace, independence and national solidarity.
