On Sunday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the evacuation of about 5,000 people from flood-hit areas of the country.
Pictures aired Saturday by state broadcaster KCTV showed homes flooded to the roof level and bridges damaged by heavy rain.
“Hundreds of hectares of farmland” in the southern province of southern Hamjiang have been submerged and roads and houses damaged after the ditches broke.
Bad weather comes after Kim Jong Un admitted in June that his country was facing a “tense food situation”.
According to the state-run KCNA news agency, he on Sunday ordered supplies and financial assistance to help southern Hamjiang province return to normalcy.
Officials in the province on Thursday discussed “urgent measures to quickly restore the lives of people in the most affected areas.”
Ri Yong Nam, North Korea’s vice president of meteorological services, told KCTV that further rains would cause more damage as the soil was already wet. “We expect heavy rain in many areas, mainly near the east coast, until August 10,” he continued.
According to the United Nations Food Program (FAO) released in July, North Korea will face a food shortage of 860,000 tons this year. The agency warned of a “tough lean period between August and October.”
The North Korean regime has long struggled to feed its people under international sanctions for its banned military programs and continues to suffer from food shortages.
The pressure on the North Korean economy has increased with regular border closures and a series of storms and floods in 2020 to combat the corona virus epidemic.
North Korea experienced the worst famine in the 1990s, when hundreds of thousands of people died as aid was cut off from Moscow after the Soviet collapse.
“Prone to fits of apathy. Introvert. Award-winning internet evangelist. Extreme beer expert.”
