풍계리 핵 실험장 폭파 그림 원산에서 송출, 공개
It was only a matter of hours before Trump canceled the summit that North Korea demolished its nuclear test site at Punggye-ri... in a gesture apparently to demonstrate good will.
And reporters who were there, after a trip of around 17 hours back to the North Korean city of Wonsan, have been uploading footage of the demolition from their press center.
Our Foreign Ministry correspondent Lee Ji-won, who is part of South Korea's Joint Press Corps for Punggye-ri, has more.
With the journalists arriving back at the press center in Wonsan on Friday morning,... video footage of the dismantling event has finally been revealed to the world.
North Korea's Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the country's northeastern Hamgyongbuk-do Province became a thing of the past on Thursday.
After a long arduous journey, the reporters were taken close to the North Portal, also known as tunnel number 2.
The reporters were briefed by the North's Nuclear Weapons Institute Deputy Chair Kang Kyung-ho on how the dismantling would take place.
And at 11a.m., the North Portal was blown up,... followed by another blast destroying an observation building near the entrance.
The North Portal is where most of the North's nuclear tests had been held... from the second to the sixth.
A second round of explosions took place at 2:17PM with the West Portal, known as tunnel number 4 being blown up. And thirty minutes later,.. living quarters were also brought down.
The third round of explosions took place slightly past 4 in the afternoon which destroyed the third and final tunnel, tunnel number 3, the South Portal.
And 15 minutes later, military barracks near the area were destroyed as well.
Once the explosions were over, Deputy Chair Kang officially declared the test site shut.
"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's Nuclear Weapons Institute held a ceremony that completely demolished the northern nuclear test site on May 24th, 2018 to transparently show our willingness to cease nuclear testing. By blowing up the tunnels, we completely blocked the entrances to them, as well as a number of security facilities and observation buildings. There were no radiation leaks nor was there any fundamental impact on the surrounding environment."
The ceremony wrapped up at around 5 p.m., Thursday evening and at 7p.m., the international reporters headed back to their hotel in Wonsan.
The reporters fly back to Beijing on Saturday morning.
Lee Ji-won, South Korea's Joint Press Corps for Punggye-ri.
