SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered officials to provide food and shelter for hundreds of families who lost their homes in floods triggered by heavy rains, state news media KCNA reported on Friday.
In a visit to a county in North Hwanghae Province that borders South Korea, leader Kim “clarified tasks” for the recovery work as he inspected the damage, KCNA said.
Consecutive days of torrential rains inundated over 730 single-story houses and a vast rice field in Taechong-ri of Unpha County, northwest of the capital Pyongyang, with 179 houses destroyed, KCNA said.
KCNA did not give more specific reports of overall damages throughout North Korea. There were no casualties in the county.
“It is of priority importance to quickly supply sleeping materials, daily commodities, medicines and other necessities to the flood-affected people to stabilize their living as early as possible,” Kim said in a statement carried by KCNA.
Kim also decided to urgently mobilize the army for the rehabilitation work “to give precedence to the arrangement of the wrecked houses, roads and the zones with the people of the county.”
This year’s heavy rains come during the summer harvest season, raising concerns about food security as the rain appears to be hitting some of the major rice-growing areas of North Korea.
Citing unidentified South Korean government officials, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said North Korea opened the floodgates of a border dam on Monday without advance notice to its neighbor.
South Korea on Thursday approved plans to donate $10 million to help fund the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) efforts to aid North Korean children and women.
Parts of South Korea have seen over 40 consecutive days of rain, the longest monsoon since 2013, and continued precipitation across the Korean peninsula threatens to bring new floods and landslides.
(Reporting by Sangmi Cha; Editing by Tom Brown)
