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| An anti-tank barricade in Paju City. / Korea Times file |
By Chyung Eun-ju, Park Si-soo, Park Seo-gang, Kim Joo-young
Driving north from Seoul provides a chance to see some structures you might not have seen elsewhere: giant concrete blocks mounted on thin walls.
From a distance, they look like supersized dolmen, or ancient T-shaped tombs, with cars or trains running underneath. Up close, they could be mistaken for half-built tunnels.
These "rock drops" that can be spotted on major highways and railways stretching from Seoul to the inter-Korean border are legacies of the Cold War era -- anti-tank barricades.
South Korea installed them after the 1950-53 Korean War, fearing North Korea could invade again. If it happened, and armored vehicles steamed down from the North, the South Korean military would blow up the columns holding the blocks to delay the advance to Seoul, South Korea's most populous city.
The two Koreas are still technically at war because the Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Chances of another war are low, but the North's repeated provocations are triggers of a whole different story.
With the peninsula's security hanging in the balance, the barricades, each weighing 120 tons, have spawned safety concerns.
Built over 30 years ago
The barricades were built in the 1970s and 1980s, and their age is causing concerns. Paju City, in northern Gyeonggi Province, has 53 barricades, of which 43 were built before the mid-1980s.
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| A vehicle passes under one of the concrete blocks. / Korea Times file |
Vibrations from passing vehicles weaken concrete structures over time and the barricades' weight increases the possibility of subsidence.
Apartment buildings that are 30 years old or more are usually rebuilt.
"When the strength of concrete is strong, it can withstand ground subsidence. But if it becomes weak, the barricade can collapse in an instant," Park Jong-guk, the head of the Citizen Safety Watch Center, said. "Accidents can be prevented by examining the strength and corrosion with a non-destructive inspection of barricades over 30 years old."
However, the rock drops have been maintained for security reasons. The Hankook Ilbo, the sister paper of The Korea Times, went to Paju City and checked 20 barricades. It saw the edges of the columns supporting the barricades chipped away and walls cracked. The ceiling of the overhead drops also had water leaks. There were no "Do not access" or "No pictures allowed" signs.
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| An anti-tank barricade in Goyang City. / Korea Times file |
"The responsible troops regularly check the safety of the concrete barricades through observation during their operations," a Ministry of National Defense official said.
A military officer, surnamed Jeon, 45, begged to differ.
"I don't remember ever checking the security of the concrete walls, except when training to blow up the walls in case of emergency," he said.
The barricades also were not designed to withstand earthquakes.
"The walls were built so that they would collapse in case of emergency, so they were not built to resist earthquakes," the official said.
The barricades are made up of several 4.6 ton concrete blocks a meter wide, a meter long and two meters tall. They sit on top of a 20-centimeter thick column. Put together, the barricade could drop a weight of 120 tons.
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| The cracked barricade in Paju City. / Korea Times file |
There are about 250,000 vehicles a day that pass by the barricades and their vibrations contribute to weakening the structures.
Despite safety concerns, tearing down barricades is a complicated matter.
"We cannot do anything about the structures without the cooperation of the military," a Gyeonggi Province Government official said. "Even after consulting with the military, the local government has to provide the budget, which could take a long time."
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| The cracked wall of the anti-tank barricade in Paju City. / Korea Times file |
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| Concrete blocks over a road in Paju City. / Korea Times file |
