By Sangmi Cha
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un praised his military for its prompt efforts to rebuild towns hit hard by typhoons and summer floods, state news media KCNA reported on Tuesday.
Kim visited the province of North Hwanghae, south of Pyongyang, which had removed all traces of the natural disaster and been successfully re-built as a “socialist fairyland”, said KCNA.
The visit was the latest by Kim to typhoon-hit areas of the country, issuing alerts ahead of the storms to prevent crop damage and casualties, then dispatching military and party members to help communities recover.
“The People’s Army is made up of creators of all miracles on this land,” Kim praised his army in a statement carried by the KCNA.
“The genuine might of the People’s Army lies not in the number of troops and the might of ammunitions but in their ardent love for their country.”
North Korea was hit by “disastrous meteorological phenomena” this summer with heavy rains and typhoons, bringing the second highest rainfall in the past 25 years, the weather agency had said on Monday in a statement carried by KCNA.
The country recorded an average 852.3 mm (34 inches) of summer precipitation throughout the country, more than triple the year earlier, KCNA said.
North Korea’s agriculture sector is particularly vulnerable to severe weather, and this summer’s storms and floods have raised concerns over the country’s tenuous food situation.
(Reporting by Sangmi Cha; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
