A noon deadline imposed on 21 surviving South Korean hostages kidnapped by the Taliban approached Wednesday with negotiations apparently deadlocked and international concern growing.

Police at daybreak Tuesday discovered the body of a second South Korean hostage slain by the Taliban, officials said. A purported Taliban spokesman had said the hostage was killed because the Afghan government failed to release imprisoned insurgents

Efforts to save the lives of South Koreans being held by Afghanistan’s hardline Taliban militia took on new urgency Tuesday after the rebels said they had killed a second hostage.