North Koreans are urged to donate work and money to flood clean-up – Radio Free Asia

Factories and residents in North Korea are rubbing against new contracts to finance and build new homes for people on the east coast of the country whose homes were destroyed in floods earlier this month, sources in the RFA region said.

North Korean state television reported that 5,000 people were evacuated when floods damaged around 1,000 homes. The rains were most severe in the coastal provinces of North and South Hamgyong, causing widespread power outages, flooding some buildings to roofs, and washing away roads and farmland.

The disaster hit North Korea as it struggled with food shortages and economic fallout from closing the border with China in January 2020 to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, adding to the pinch of longstanding international sanctions to halt its nuclear program.

North Korea’s needy people are routinely asked to donate work, money and food to national projects or disaster relief, and the task is made difficult by the constant shortage of materials and basic equipment.

“Military and party officials come to every organization and the neighborhood guards to propagate that everyone should donate money or even help a little for their neighbors,” said a resident of South Hamgyong Province, describing the mobilization in Kumya County.

“Small organizations with a small number of people need to donate money and gasoline to the provincial party for construction,” he said.

“All households in the city also have the task of donating 20 stones, five buckets of small pebbles, 20 buckets of sand and nails,” the source, who refused to be named to speak freely, told the Korean Service from RFA on 8.20.

Although the ruling Korean Workers’ Party and provincial government said they would provide basic materials and supplies to build the houses, they have only supplied cement so far, the source said.

To source wood, officials have instructed factories and companies to fell trees in a few cubic meters of forest land and use the wood as building material, the source said.

The factories will have to send workers into the forest to cut the trees and then process the wood themselves, while local residents will also have to help with the recovery efforts, he added.

‘Fight from the start’

The military has been tasked with building apartments and the provincial government must oversee the construction of single-story houses, said a second resident from South Hamgyong Province, who also turned down his name to speak freely.

Provincial organizations and the South Hamgyong Provincial Party Committee have set a goal of completing construction by the 76th anniversary of Korea’s ruling Labor Party on October 10, he told RFA on August 20.

“As the provincial party committee placed tasks on large organizations, factories and companies in the province to build new houses in areas hit by heavy rainfall, restoration projects are ongoing in various areas, including Sinhung County,” the source said.

The ruling party has pledged to provide building materials like cement, rebar and gasoline, while the province has pledged to provide lumber and roof tiles, the source said.

“However, since it is evident that these measures have not been properly prepared, every organization responsible for the construction has to struggle with the construction work from the start,” he said.

A major obstacle is a critical shortage of vehicles to transport building materials and supplies, as well as the fuel needed to operate, the source said. Another catch is that factories and businesses have to provide sand and gravel, the two materials primarily used in house building, and there isn’t enough to get around.

The provincial party and government have taken the lead in restoring the national telecommunications network, which was disrupted by the heavy rain, the source said.

Officials mobilized housewives and farm workers to dig four feet deep and two feet wide trenches to lay telecommunications cables, with each person assigned to dig a 16.4-foot section of the ground.

A resident of North Hamgyong Province told RFA that digging trenches for telecommunications cables was a tedious task for residents.

“Since Puryong County is a mountainous area, there are many stones and rocks, but there is no mechanical means like an excavator, so people have had a lot of trouble digging the ground with a pickaxe,” the source said, who asked for anonymity.

The wives of civil servants and wealthy women were each allowed to pay 30,000 won ($ 6.25) to avoid manual labor, he said.

Reported by Changgyu Ahn for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.