A family in Samsu County, Yanggang Province, recently died from what appears to have been gas poisoning, Daily NK has learned.
According to a Daily NK source in the province on Tuesday, a family of four — including a man in his 50s identified by his family name of Pak — was found dead in Kaeunsong Village, Samsu County, on Oct. 22.
The authorities have not released the exact cause of death, but according to the source, the family appears to have suffocated due to smoke or toxic fumes.
Located in the far north of the Korean Peninsula, Yanggang Province is an extremely cold region where winter temperatures plunge to -20 degrees Celsius. When the weather really starts to grow cold from early October, locals warm up their floors by lighting fires in their furnaces.
However, if the hypocausts (a type of central heating system that warms a house’s floors through pipes) are split or broken, smoke could leak into rooms and cause carbon monoxide poisoning, the source said.
In rural or mountain regions of Yanggang Province in particular, the floors of most homes are not properly plastered, meaning when people light furnace fires in winter, smoke leaks into the room, forcing them to ventilate their homes several times a day.
Moreover, many people forget to ventilate their home before falling asleep, leading to cases where people suffocate during the night.
The source said police in Samsu County investigated the recent deaths and concluded that the family suffocated due to smoke, given that there were no signs of threats or foul play, and that the victims were found lying down.
The county’s police are using the incident to emphasize measures to prevent toxic gas poisonings.
In contrast to North Korea’s cities, the country’s rural villages are still largely made up of homes constructed from wood and clay, the source said.
“People who are too poor to buy sand or cement are falling victim to accidents when their rooms fill up with smoke after lighting fires under hypocausts finished with clay and rice straw or wheat straw,” he said.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that the responsibility for the death of Pak’s family rests with the government, which has ignored the terrible living conditions of local people,” he claimed.
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