Kim Braces North Korea for Typhoon That Could Wipe Out Crops

Jeong-Ho Lee

26 Aug 2020, 05:37 PM IST

(Bloomberg) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told his ruling party to get ready for a typhoon that could deal another blow to the country’s already damaged agricultural sector.

The typhoon comes after North Korea has been hit by flooding this month that wiped out farmland. Kim said at an enlarged meeting of the politburo of the Workers’ Party, that thorough state emergency measures were needed to prevent casualties and minimize crop damage, the official Korea Central News Agency reported Wednesday.

He called it “important work which can never be neglected even for a moment for our Party bearing the responsibility for the destiny of the people,” KCNA reported. Kim also reiterated his calls for cadres to step up their work to prevent a spread of the coronavirus into the country.

North Korea’s anemic economy has been hit by tough sanctions to punish it for nuclear and missile tests in 2017. Kim’s decision to shut borders in January due to the virus slammed the brakes on the little legal trade it had and combined with the flooding, the economy is set for its biggest contraction in more than two decades, according to Fitch Solutions.

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Powerful Typhoon Bavi, packing torrential rains and maximum sustained winds of about 176 kilometers per hour (109 mph) as of Wednesday, is bearing down on the Korean Peninsula, It’s expected to make landfall in North Korea’s Hwanghae provinces on Thursday, South’s Korea Meteorological Administration said.

The typhoon will likely cause even more damage to North Korea’s fragile agricultural sector, increasing food insecurity in a country where the United Nations World Food Program says about 40% of the population is undernourished.

Kim told the meeting the typhoon could affect three provinces, which the WFP estimates accounts for more than 60% of the country’s rice production.

North Korea has not reported any confirmed cases for coronavirus, a claim doubted by U.S. and Japanese officials. But Pyongyang said last month Covid-19 “could have entered” his country via a defector who returned to North Korea after escaping to South Korea.