Some 290 South Korean workers returned from the Gaeseong Industrial Complex on Monday afternoon after being stranded for four days due to the North's closure of the inter-Korean border.

The Unification Ministry said that, originally, 450 were supposed to return, but some 150 volunteered to stay to take care of the factories.

The workers told reporters at the border transit office that the South Koreans in the complex were safe, but that the companies were running out of raw materials, gas and food supplies. They said that if supplies are not provided soon, factory operations will be disrupted.

North Korea still maintains a ban on the entry of South Korean workers into the South-North joint industrial complex. Some 600 workers returned to the South after waiting hours for permission to cross the border from the North at the immigration office of the South’s Dorasan station.