South Korea has a maximum daily capacity of sending 100,000 kilowatts to the factory zone in the North's border city of Kaesong, but its supply has tumbled to around 3,000 kilowatts a day, said the officials at the unification ministry that handles inter-Korean affairs.
Before the trouble erupted, South Korea's power supply to the Kaesong industrial complex ranged from one-third of the capacity to half, they said.
The tumble in power supply came after more than 120 South Korean workers and managers returned home from Kaesong on April 27. The last seven South Koreans withdrew last Friday after settling outstanding wages and taxes owed to the North.
Amid acute cross-border tensions, the vast factory zone ground to a halt in early April after North Korea unilaterally withdrew all of its 53,000 workers. South Korea responded by pulling out its own people who once hovered around 800.
Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk said a sharp drop in demand in Kaesong affected South Korea's supply of power.
"The plunge in demand has translated into only a bare minimum of power being sent," Kim told reporters, denying that the drop was intentional.
He said that while power lines and sub stations can still handle the maximum load, there is no reason to send so much power, since all factories in Kaesong are closed.
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The spokesman declined to elaborate, but a source at the state-run Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) said about 3,000 kilowatts of power is being used at Kaesong. KEPCO officials said that even before operations were halted at the zone, power sent from the South hovered between half and a third of the maximum capacity.
One KEPCO official said that because power is still reaching the industrial park, the water treatment facility there is still working. The water processed there is supplied to tens of thousands of Kaesong citizens.
In testimony to a parliamentary hearing, Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae said the amount of power supplied to Kaesong has steadily dropped to one-tenth of the normal level, starting in late April.
Seoul originally had hinted that it would completely cut off power supply to the industrial complex but it has opted not to do so for the time being because such a move may be viewed in the North as a sign that the industrial park is doomed to die.
The two Koreas are still technically at war, with no peace treaty signed at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
yonngong@yna.co.kr
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