Some 12,000 families have moved into newly built houses in North Korea's flood-damaged North Hamgyong Province, a state-run North Korean news outlet reported Monday, while touting its leader Kim Jong-un's "warm care for the people."
"Dwelling houses of at least 11,900 families in the northern part of Korea which suffered a severe disaster have been rebuilt in a matter of two months," the (North) Korean Central New Agency said.
Typhoon Lionrock smashed the province in early September, which North Korean news outlets earlier said left nearly 70,000 residents homeless. More than 130 North Koreans were also reportedly dead and about 400 missing in the North's worst-ever flood.
All nine vice chairmen of the North's powerful Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party, including Choe Ryong-hae, Kim Ki-nam, Choe Thae-bok and Ri Su-yong, attended ceremonies for the homeless to enter new houses in the devastated provincial towns of Hoeryong and Musan, Yonsa, Onsong, Kyongwon and Kyonghung, the agency, monitored here, said.
In their joint congratulatory addresses, the vice chairmen praised Kim's earlier decision to set the recovery of the flood-hit areas as a major goal of the so-called "200-day Campaign of Loyalty," the agency said. The North kicked off the campaign on June 1 as part of efforts to implement the country's five-year economic development plan adopted at the party congress in May.
"All party members should hold Kim Jong-un in high esteem, keeping in mind the steadfast faith that people's happy life would be firmly defended ... as long as there is the warm care of Kim Jong-un," the agency cited them as saying.
A Unification Ministry official in Seoul, however, said, "At present, it's hard to say that the rehabilitation work in the North has been finished."
An earlier North Korea-UN joint survey in the province showed that some 37,000 families were victims of the flood, with some 15,000 houses totally destroyed, the official said.
“The North seems to be trying to hastily put final touches on the recovery work in order to boost the morale of its people," the official said. (Yonhap)
