North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited farms affected by Storm Khanun and oversaw military helicopters spraying pesticides in an attempt to save key crops, state media reported on Friday.
Tropical Storm Khanun passed through North Korea last week after hitting Japan.
Natural disasters tend to have a greater impact on the isolated and impoverished North, whose infrastructure is less resilient, and which deforestation has made vulnerable to flooding.
On Thursday, North Korea was accused before the United Nations Security Council of spending heavily on its nuclear weapons program as its people go hungry and lack basic necessities.
South Korea’s intelligence agency told the council that about 240 North Koreans died of starvation between January and July this year, parliament member Yoo Sang-bum told reporters.
KCNA footage shows Mr Kim, dressed in a white jacket and trousers, crouched on the edge of a rice paddy as military helicopters spray the crops with pesticide.
The North Korean leader said the military’s quick response to the typhoon damage had “achieved a miracle in reclaiming the flooded farmland in a short period of time”.
At the request of the United States, which chairs the Security Council in August, a two-hour public meeting of the Council was exclusively devoted to the “violations” of fundamental rights by the Pyongyang regime. A first since 2017.
According to Seoul’s intelligence agency, its northern neighbor’s economy is trapped in a “vicious circle” with negative growth between 2020 and 2022.
According to the same source, North Korea’s GDP fell in 2022 by 12% compared to 2016.
North Korea was periodically hit by famines during the 1990s, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, with some estimates putting the death toll in the millions.
Pyongyang held a high-level meeting in February to specifically address food shortages and agricultural issues.
As the storm approached the peninsula, North Korea waged “an aggressive campaign to deal with disastrous abnormal weather” and called for measures to minimize damage to North Korea’s economic output. , according to state media.
Earlier this week, Kim Jong Un reprimanded local authorities, calling them “irresponsible” for failing to prevent the damage caused by a tropical storm.
Despite its difficult economic situation, Pyongyang has carried out a record series of weapons tests this year, including its first solid-fuel ballistic missile, which experts say is a major technological breakthrough.
18/08/2023 14:27:32 – Seoul (AFP) © 2023 AFP
