N. KOREA BLOWS UP INTER-KOREAN LIAISON OFFICE

[Anchor Lead]

North Korea has blown up the joint inter-Korean liaison office in the city of Kaesong. The move comes three days after the North Korean leader's sister, Kim Yo-jong, warned that the office would be destroyed beyond recognition.

[Pkg]

​​This scene was captured by the South Korean military's surveillance equipment at 2:49 p.m. Tuesday. The explosion occurs six seconds into the footage. The long building at the center is the joint liaison office. It is destroyed in a matter of seconds. The footage shows smoke rising from the bottom of the structure and its upper part caving in. Glass windows at the Kaesong Industrial Park's support center are shattered from the blast. Moments later, an explosion is heard. It's powerful enough to make the South Korean military's surveillance equipment shake. Black smoke can be seen engulfing the 15-story support center. The smoke spreads all over the Kaesong Industrial Complex and far enough to be seen even by South Korean residents near the border area. Smoke is all that is left of the four-story joint liaison office built in September 2018. This is exactly what the North Korean leader's sister, Kim Yo-jong, warned would happen three days ago. Back then she said the structure would be destroyed beyond recognition. Just three or four seconds after the explosion, the building was turned into a pile of ashes. When the media first reported about the military detecting smoke in the Kaesong Industrial Complex at around 3:30 p.m., the news shocked the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee meeting that was underway at the time and was attended by the unification minister.

[Soundbite] REP. LEE JAE-JUNG(DEMOCRATIC PARTY) : "Have you received any reports about what happened?"

[Soundbite] KIM YEON-CHUL(MINISTER OF UNIFICATION) : "We need to find out more about this."

At 3:50 p.m., the unification ministry notified journalists about the explosion via text message. North Korea announced the explosion through its state media at 5:06 p.m., about two hours after the incident.

[Soundbite] (KOREAN CENTRAL TV(JUN. 16)) : "In response to public outrage and calls for holding responsible the human scum and those who condoned their acts, we halted all communication channels with the South and completely destroyed the inter-Korean liaison office in the Kaesong Industrial Complex."

The joint liaison office, a symbol of peace and dialogue on the Korean Peninsula, has vanished into history just one year and nine months after its opening.