A convoy of 40 South Korean trucks carrying emergency rice aid entered the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) across the heavily fortified inter-Korean overland border Tuesday morning.

A separate convoy of 40 trucks also rumbled into the DPRK with rice aid by crossing the eastern sector of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) Tuesday morning, reported the South Korean Yonhap News Agency.

It is the first time the DPRK temporarily opened its land border with South Korea to get food aid.

Tuesday's transportation is part of 400,000 tons of rice South Korea has promised to give the DPRK at a high-level government meeting in June.

The trucks are scheduled to return home later in the day after unloading their cargo at the DPRK's border towns of Kaesong and Kosong, the report said. The two towns are an hour's ride from thesouthern boundary of the 4.5-kilometer-wide DMZ that separates thetwo countries.

South Korean officials said the overland delivery will take 13 weeks. They plan to buy the remaining 300,000 tons rice overseas to be sent directly to the DPRK by ship.

The officials said that overland deliveries are significant because they would utilize newly built transportation links and help ease military tension between the two sides.

Source: Xinhua