North Korea moving thousands of flood victims to capital: KCNA

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits flood-hit Uiju county in the country’s north – Copyright KCNA VIA KNS/AFP STR

North Korea will move more than 15,000 flood victims to the capital, state media said Saturday, as leader Kim Jong Un insisted recovery efforts would be “based on self-reliance” despite offers of aid from abroad.

Pyongyang last week said a record downpour in late July had killed an unspecified number of people, flooded dwellings, and submerged swathes of farmland in its northern regions near China.

On a visit to flood-hit Uiju on Friday, Kim said the government planned to accommodate around 15,400 flood victims from the northern region at facilities in the capital until their destroyed homes are rebuilt, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

The plan, which will include food and medical assistance as well as educational support for the thousands of students being moved, will be “a top priority of the state,” Kim said.

International offers of support have poured in since news of the flooding disaster first emerged, including from South Korea, which offered humanitarian aid via the Korean Red Cross despite the two countries’ strained relations.

Moscow has reached out with a similar offer, according to Pyongyang, while Seoul’s Yonhap news agency has reported that China and the United Nations Children’s Fund had signalled their willingness to help.

But Kim said Friday that the country’s recovery efforts would be “thoroughly based on self-reliance”, according to KCNA.

Still, he expressed “thanks to various foreign countries and international organizations for their offer of humanitarian support,” the report said.

South Korean media have reported that the number of dead and missing in the North could be as high as 1,500, but Kim on Friday dismissed the reports as a “grave provocation” and “an insult to the flood-stricken people who are all safe and well.”

Natural disasters tend to have an outsized impact on the isolated and impoverished country due to its weak infrastructure, while deforestation has left it vulnerable to flooding.

Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with the North recently announcing the deployment of 250 ballistic missile launchers to its southern border.