North Korean Military Deploys For Disaster Relief Mission Following Floods in South Hamgyong Province

North Korea’s ruling party has ordered the country’s armed forces, the Korean People’s Army, to deploy to South Hamgyong Province for disaster relief after serious damage to housing and infrastructure was caused by major flooding. Korean state media outlet KCNA stated to this effect: "The WPK [Workers' Party of Korea] Central Military Commission issued an instruction to... immediately restore the damaged roads in the afflicted regions by mobilising engineer units and set the units of the People's Army stationed in the province on the recovery campaign from damage.” Heavy rains from 1-3 August in South Hamgyong resulted in 1,170 houses being flooded, forcing and 5,000 people to evacuate. 

The floods are hardly the first time that the People’s Army has been deployed for disaster relief - most notably in the summer of 2016 when much larger floods resulting from Typhoon Lionrock destroyed over 35,000 homes, left over 100,000 people temporarily homeless and killed an estimated 500 people. Previously in July and August 1995 the country experienced much larger floods in described as being “of biblical proportions” by international observers, affecting 30 percent of the country. The adverse effects of extreme weather complemented the effects of Western economic sanctions to cause an economic crisis and serious food shortages in the 1990s. North Korea today remains under the harshest sanctions regime ever imposed in modern history as a range of Western drafted resolutions penalising the country were imposed through the United Nations Security Council from 2006 to 2017. The country’s economic growth has been further curbed by additional unilateral Western sanctions imposed since 2017 as well as a closing of the country’s borders due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The country has nevertheless maintained stable food and commodity prices and avoided any serious inflation.