North Korean officials face punishment as Kim Jong-un visits typhoon-hit area
- North Korean leader toured coastal areas hit by Typhoon Maysak, and ordered 12,000 core party members to join the recovery effort
- Dozens of casualties’ reported by North Korean newspaper after typhoon
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has visited typhoon-stricken areas in the northeast, fired a top official there and promised to send 12,000 workers from Pyongyang for recovery efforts, state media reported Sunday.
It’s the latest in a series of high-profile visits by Kim and his deputies to areas hit by natural disasters in recent weeks. Some experts say Kim likely attempted to project an image of a leader looking after people’s livelihoods as he seeks to bolster internal unity in the face of the coronavirus pandemic and US-led sanctions.
While Kim surveyed the damage caused by a typhoon that battered coastal areas last week, a tenth typhoon of the season was swirling in the East China Sea.
The Korean Central News Agency said that Kim on Saturday visited South Hamgyong province, which was hit by Typhoon Maysak last week. It said Kim was briefed that the typhoon destroyed more than 1,000 houses and inundated public buildings and farmland in the coastal areas of South Hamgyong as well as nearby North Hamgyong province.
KCNA didn’t report any deaths or injuries in the two provinces. But the country’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said Saturday that “dozens of casualties” were reported in Kangwon province, south of the Hamgyong provinces, and that officials in Kangwon would be “gravely punished” for failing to evacuate residents to safety.
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Kim also convened a high-level policy meeting there, where he “underscored the need to make the recovery campaign from damage an important political work and an occasion of consolidating the single-mined unity,” KCNA said.
Kim said authorities must issue “a general mobilisation order” to ensure the swift supply of materials for rehabilitation works and urged members of the ruling Workers’ Party in Pyongyang, the capital, to take the lead.