Severity of damage difficult to surmise
Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that due to heavy rains, the Taedong River there was flooded for the first time since 1990. North Korea, however, has not announced in detail the seriousness of the damage. According to a report on July 16, all of North Korea received a blanket of heavy rainfall, with 227 millimeters of rain falling in Pyongyang, 485 millimeters in Yangdok, 382 millimeters in Pyonggang, 366 millimeters in Kaesong, and 300 millimeters in Wonsan. Since there was no video feed of affected areas broadcast on North Korean television, it was impossible to know the extent of the damage. The Choson Sinbo, a pro-Pyongyang paper published in Japan, reported that on July 14-15, "Haeju, Ongjin, Ryongyon, Pongchon, Paechon, and Kangryong in South Hwanghae Province received more than 100 millimeters of rain in a short time and many acres of farmland were submerged. Because of the heavy rainfall, many economic sectors, including agriculture, were hit severely. The government is examining the scale of the damage."Any casualties have also yet to be reported. Due to lack of effective communications and transportation networks, it will take a long time to complete surveys on the damage. During severe famine in the mid-1990s, North Korea cut down trees to make farmland, so there are many ’naked’ mountains without the ability to absorb heavy water flow and stop mudslides and soil erosion. As a result, the North sustains far more damage than the South in the case of heavy rains, experts pointed out. When typhoon Janis hit the Korean peninsula in late August 1995, up to 1,000 millimeters of rain fell in the Sinuiju region of the North. That worst-ever flood in North Korea displaced or adversely affected 5.2 million people.
