Seoul: South Korea and the United States on Monday launched a four-week joint project in eastern coastal areas near the East Sea to locate the remains and belongings of soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War, Seoul's defense ministry said. The project between the ministry's Agency for KIA Recovery and Identification and the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) will run through May 1 in Gangneung and Yangyang in Gangwon Province.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the monthlong project will serve as a preliminary step ahead of a joint underwater search project scheduled for August. Officials are set to conduct on-site interviews with local residents, collect references, and inspect facilities, such as a decompression chamber, ahead of the underwater search.

The officials aim to recover remains and parts that may provide evidence of a military transport plane that crashed in 1952 due to an engine malfunction en route from Gangneung to Pohang. The accident left nine missing, including one South Korean soldier. The two sides have regularly teamed up for joint excavation projects for missing American soldiers of the Korean War.

More than 1.7 million U.S. troops served during the conflict, with more than 36,000 killed. Nearly 7,400 Americans still remain unaccounted for from the three-year war, according to the DPAA.