About 60-thousand South Koreans who applied for inter-Korean family reunions have died before meeting their separated relatives in North Korea.

The Unification Ministry said Sunday that 60-thousand-312 or 46-and-a-half percent of 129-thousand applicants for inter-Korean family reunions died as of the end of August.

The number of deceased applicants increased two-thousand-520 from late December last year.

About ten percent of the surviving applicants are over 90 years old, while 41 percent of them are over 80 and 29 percent over 70.