Aug 14- According to state media, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un chastised “irresponsible” officials for failing to avoid damage from a tropical cyclone that raced through the Korean peninsula last week.
Tropical Storm Khanun, which pummelling Japan before circling the Korean peninsula, swept past North Korea early Friday, bringing heavy rains to the South.
Natural disasters have a higher impact on the isolated and impoverished North because of its poor infrastructure, and deforestation has made it vulnerable to flooding.
Kim remarked during a visit to flooded farmlands in Anbyon County in the country’s east that the region experienced more damage than other areas “entirely due to extremely chronic and irresponsible work attitude” of local officials, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
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“The region’s officials were insensitive to state measures and took no measures, and as a result, the region suffered much more damage than other regions,” Kim was quoted as saying in the report.
As the storm approached the peninsula, the North launched “a dynamic campaign to cope with disastrous abnormal climate” and asked for measures to reduce economic damage.
Famine has struck the North on several occasions, with hundreds of thousands of people dying – estimates vary into the millions – in the mid-1990s.
