For South Korea's Peace Dam, a history of conflict

HWACHEON, South Korea: For two decades now, the erratic fortunes of the massive Peace Dam here near the demilitarized zone have mirrored the tortuous relationship between North and South. As the two sides' leaders prepare for their summit meeting in early October, a review of its curious history suggests the barriers they must overcome in the quest for reconciliation.

The story goes back to 1986, when, as South Korea was busy preparing for its biggest-ever international event, the 1988 Summer Olympics, North Korean soldiers broke ground on a gigantic dam project just above the DMZ.

As South Koreans wondered what their unpredictable Communist neighbor was up to this time, the military dictator of the South, Chun Doo Hwan, offered his own terrifying scenario: a killer flood.

Caught up in the "water-bomb" scare, South Korean TV networks broadcast artists' conceptions of monstrous walls of water unleashed from the North Korean dam that wiped out most of Seoul, 200 kilometers, or 120 miles, downstream, with "the impact of a nuclear explosion" during the Olympics.

So South Korea built a dam of its own. Even schoolchildren joined the fund-raising campaign to construct a protective bulwark against the Northern threat.

Today, the Peace Dam - begun in 1987, abandoned halfway through as a misguided Cold War program, and then revived and completed in 2005 - stands here, a hulk 125 meters, or 410 feet, high and 600 meters wide.