Several children have been injured after falling from an old swing carousel at a kindergarten playground in Yonsa County, North Hamgyong Province, Daily NK has learned.
“There’s a 30-year-old swing carousel at a kindergarten in Yonsa Township, Yonsa County, which has been poorly maintained despite its dilapidated condition. Between the end of February and the beginning of March, several children fell and were injured while playing on the swing,” a source in the province told Daily NK on Mar. 15, speaking on condition of anonymity.
According to the source, most of the playground equipment at the kindergarten was so old that it was all collected for scrap metal, except for the swing ride. Even that ride is only partially intact, with some broken parts being collected as scrap.
The surviving part of the swing is so dangerous that it seems to be on the verge of collapsing. But because it is the only thing to play on, children at the kindergarten climb on it every day.
From the end of February until recently, three children fell from the swing and were injured. The children were hanging from the ride’s rickety arms when they broke, sending the children plummeting to the ground. They suffered serious injuries to their heads and limbs in the fall, the source said.
“The children are being cared for at home by their parents because hospital treatment is out of the question. The hospitals are in poor condition and have no medicines, so the parents have to buy medicines and hire a local doctor to treat their children out of their own pockets. The parents buy medicine from a market vendor and treat their children according to the doctor’s instructions,” the source said.
“Both the kindergarten and the Ministry of Education, which manages the facility, share the blame for the accidents, as neither did anything about such a dangerous piece of playground equipment. But instead of taking responsibility for the accidents, everyone is blaming it on the children’s misbehavior. Meanwhile, parents are left running around trying to find medicine for their injured children.”
The situation has aroused the anger of people in the neighborhood, the source said.
“People point out that the second accident happened because no one felt the need to take action after the first accident at the end of February. They also criticize the authorities for not taking the obvious step of immediately removing the swing in the kindergarten playground after this series of accidents,” she said.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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