The Ryanggang Province city of Hyesan is in the midst of a “speed battle”, a large redevelopment operation intended to allow the city to better support the surrounding regions of Samjiyon County. However, there are increasing concerns from local residents about the poor quality of construction occurring in the area.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the Samjiyon County modernization project to be completed as quickly as possible during a visit to the area in July this year.
“The development projects in Hyesan are progressing quickly, but some local residents are worried that the speedy construction of apartments means they will collapse later,” said a Ryanggang Province-based source on October 17.
Apartment and road construction in the city is progressing rapidly, reflecting the propaganda slogans calling for a “Ten Thousand Li Horse-style (Mallima) Speed Battle” ubiquitously present at construction sites. Local residents, however, make fun of the slogans by saying that “speed is the cutting-edge” (somewhat equivalent to “haste makes waste” ).
Some municipal Party officials who have been assigned to a new 10-story apartment building currently under construction in Hyesan’s Wuiyon-dong believe the quality to be so poor that they are trying to avoid being assigned to work on the building.
On July 7, 2007, a 7-story apartment in Hyesan that was constructed during a speed battle and underwent questionable redesign practices, collapsed, leading to numerous fatalities. In 2014, a dormitory for workers at the Hyesan Mine also collapsed. Memories of these incidents linger in the minds of residents as they see the new apartments being rapidly constructed, fomenting a deep sense of foreboding.
“Party officials who are assigned to apartments come to the construction sites every day to observe what’s going on. They go into the apartments and test the cement walls and say that they just crumble and sometimes even just fall completely to the ground,” a separate source in Ryanggang Province reported.
“Typhoons and floods have prevented construction materials from arriving at the sites but the construction continues regardless, so people are concerned whether the steel [support] poles have been properly installed in the buildings. A collapse is inevitable because the focus is just on speed, not on constructing the buildings with all the right materials.”
A 20-story apartment in Pyongyang’s Pyongchon District collapsed in May 2014 leading to approximately 100 fatalities. High-level Party officials including Choe Pu Il, the head of the Ministry of People’s Security, publicly met with families of the victims and local residents to apologize for the incident.
The authorities took responsibility for the poor construction in that particular instance, but locals say that little has changed. The authorities have ordered project managers to focus on both speed and quality, but site managers are reportedly emphasizing speed over all else.
One week after the Pyongchon District collapse, Kim Jong Un visited a construction site for a 46-story super high-rise apartment being built for educators at the Kim Chaek Engineering College and praised the rapid speed of construction saying, “The [military] unit that has created the 21st century attack speed and Masikryong speed is something else!”
The concerns over sub-standard construction are not only limited to the emphasis on speed. Many of the construction projects are being executed without proper construction materials, equipment or budgets, and there are endless cases of supplies being siphoned off or stolen. The management and oversight of these projects remains a fundamental issue.
Last July, in response to the rising incidents of construction materials being stolen from sites in Hyesan and Samjiyon County, the North Korean authorities punished some perpetrators responsible in a massive crackdown.
