By D. Maan, Jadetimes News
Kim Jong Un Oversees Flood Response as Thousands Evacuated from North Korea-China Border Following Heavy Rains
State media reported on Monday that over the weekend, around 5,000 people were rescued from the flood affected areas along North Korea's border with China, under the guidance of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Heavy rains square measure followed by severe floods in North Pyongan Province, prompting the North Korean Military to do emergency business. These are efforts that are geared toward saving the lives of people who have, to use the state media outlet KCNA's words, been "isolated.".
Water levels of the Amnok River, which is part of the North Korean border and named the Yalu River within China, rose "far above the warning level" in the aftermath of record rainfall that fell on Saturday. Kim judged the situation as "very serious," the KCNA report added, particularly around Sinuiju City, which lies directly across from the Chinese city of Dandong. Pictures in state media showed Kim walking through a rescue airbase and driving in an off road vehicle across floodwaters, with the North Korean leader active "inspecting and directing" the work a photo op public relations opportunity preceding the anticipated criticism local authorities are to receive.
That Kim Chong in visited the scene underlines the importance of the floods and that he meant to be seen leading the response to what he termed "disastrous abnormal weather." This came against a background of widespread extreme weather events across Asia, which scientists attributed to phenomena becoming more frequent due to climate change.
Heavy, jungle soaking rains and widespread flooding have telescoped across large areas of Asia in recent days as a major storm system swept through the region. That storm, Gaemi, covered portions of the Philippines and Taiwan with flooding over the past week and then made landfall in China's Fujian Province late Thursday local time before dissipating.
Huge parts of coastal and central China have been dealt a blow of substantial flooding in the wake of a typhoon, with heavy rains moving northward over the weekend. This has added to what has already been a painful period of extreme weather across the country, with the typical flooding season two months earlier than usual. With the most recent death toll of rainfall accidents in a rain-triggered landslide disaster reaching at least 15 in central China's Hunan Province, according to Chinese state media Xinhua on Sunday.
Northeast China is one of the country's breadbaskets, traditionally less prone to flooding than the southeast, but now regularly affected by heavy rains. Xinhua said Sunday that more than 45,000 people had been evacuated from homes in Liaoning province, which borders North Korea's North Pyongan.
The news agency Xinhua said that in Liaoning Province alone, several hundreds of chemical enterprises and mining companies have suspended work and moved to safer places in order to avoid flood risks. China's weather authority has kept Southwest Liaoning under an orange alert for rainstorms from heavy to torrential rain until Tuesday afternoon.
This string of events indicates the intensity of the impact caused by extreme weather events on a region and underlines the critical requirement for coordinated efforts in disaster response to mitigate the human and economic losses.
