North Korea recently began crafting emergency measures to help residents of high-rise apartments in Pyongyang’s Songsin and Songhwa neighborhoods who are suffering from water outages. The high-rise apartments were completed last year.
According to a Daily NK source inside North Korea last Friday, the team managing the building of 10,000 new homes in Pyongyang’s Hwasong area received an order from higher-level managers on Jan. 2 calling on them to “come up with plans to resolve the water outages suffered at some of the homes, including the 80-story apartments in Songsin and Songhwa, by mobilizing the construction command staff of the Korean People’s Army.”
The source said the managers currently handling the building of 10,000 new homes in Hwasong and construction command staff of the Korean People’s Army were mobilized to find a solution because they have workers who previously took part in the construction of homes in Songin and Songhwa.
GOVERNMENT MOVES QUICKLY TO RESOLVE WATER OUTAGES
North Korea pledged during the Eighth Party Congress in 2021 to build 50,000 new homes in Pyongyang by 2025 as part of the country’s five-year economic plan, building 10,000 new homes a year.
The country built 10,000 homes in Songsin and Songhwa as the first step of the initiative, completing construction and having new residents move in last year.
Later, North Korea widely promoted the construction of the homes in Songsin and Songhwa as one of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s accomplishments.
However, after the authorities received reports of residents in the high-rise apartments suffering inconveniences due to wintertime water outages, the government has moved immediately to resolve the problem.
Daily NK’s source said that at the Sixth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee held late last year, meeting attendees stressed that Kim Jong Un’s home construction “is a 1,000 year responsibility and a 10,000-year guarantee.”
“Accordingly, the military and Cabinet take the wintertime water outages at the newly built homes in Pyongyang very seriously,” he said.
The source said people in the high-rise apartments quietly complained that if the authorities cannot solve the water issue, it would be better to live in older low-rise apartments with running water to drink, no matter how good the views from the new high-rise apartments are.
This seems to have prompted the authorities to move quickly to preserve the residents’ trust and faith in government-led construction projects.
PUMPS AND OTHER EQUIPMENT TO BE SHIPPED IN FROM ABROAD
The source said the construction command staff of the Korean People’s Army who are now taking part in building homes in Hwasong used their free time to hold an emergency meeting and visit the site of the 80-story apartments in Songsin and Songhwa.
“And they came up with a plan to supply water from above by installing a powerful electric motor and pump on the roof and immediately sent a list of the supplies they’ll need up the chain of command,” he said.
The trade management bureaus of North and South Pyongan Province and Sinuiju Customs House received orders for emergency imports of the motors, pumps and other supplies for high-rise apartments in Songsin, Songhwa, and Hwasong on Jan. 9.
This means the authorities moved to import equipment to resolve water problems not just at the completed apartments in Songsin and Songhwa, but also the apartments currently under construction in Hwasong.
The trade management bureaus of North and South Pyongan Province have responded by beginning efforts to quickly import the requested items.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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