In contrast
to persistent drought conditions in southwestern regions, there has been
considerable rainfall in recent days in northerly North Hamkyung Province, an
inside source from the region reported on June 26th. The rainfall has taken at least two lives.
The source explained,
“I heard about the drought in the Hwanghae area, and how it is causing a lot of
worries. But here the rain has barely stopped, and it caused a landslide last
week. Because of that, some boulders rolled down a slope and killed two people
who were weeding.”
It doesn’t
require a lot of rain to cause a landslide in North Korea, where the overwhelming
majority of hillsides are denuded and barren as a result of deforestation for
firewood and deliberate clearance to create small private and semi-private
farming plots, mostly in the 1990s and 2000s.
“The two
had to finish the weeding they had been mobilized for before they could go to their
private plots, so it was late. But soon after they got there a sudden downpour came
along,” the source explained. “It has been raining for a number of days now, and
people are nervous as the rocks around their fields can roll down
the hillsides quite frequently.”
Speculating about the accident, the source
explained, “It would have been hard to hear the sound of the rocks coming down
as it was getting dark and raining hard. Even if they had seen them falling,
the speed would have been rapid due to the angle of the hill; and besides, it
was slippery so it would have been hard to avoid.”
However, “If there
were trees on the mountains, the tragedy would not have occurred,” is a common
response, the source reported. Additionally, “We have to clear the hills to make
fields [a process known as budegi in
North Korea] or else we won’t be able to live, but if the state were to give us rations
we would not be doing it.”
Moreover, local people reportedly find it lamentable that the deceased persons had already spent the entire day on mass mobilization farming tasks at the behest of the state before heading up to their private hillside plots.
The North Korean state does
not release casualty figures on a consistent basis, and so it is impossible to
know how many accidental deaths such as this occur annually. However, anecdotal
evidence from defectors over a number of years implies that the number is considerable.
