The most impressive of the last year’s revolutionary activities of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un would be his visit to the flood-stricken areas.

In late July a record downpour hit different parts of the city of Sinuiju and Uiju County in North Phyongan Province of the DPRK, leaving thousands of inhabitants isolated in the zones vulnerable to flooding. Kim Jong Un toured those areas several times to take emergency rescue measures. This left an indelible impression on people as an image of a benevolent father.

It was well after midnight when he got a report on the critical situation. That night he had attended ceremonies in celebration of the 71st anniversary of the victory in the Fatherland Liberation War on July 27. He immediately called a leading official in the afflicted area to repeatedly ask him to evacuate the residents responsibly. He also called the commander of a helicopter unit of the Air Force of the Korean People’s Army to give him a special order to rescue the victims by rapidly dispatching helicopters to the areas vulnerable to flooding. Early next morning he visited the air base despite the windy weather, and oversaw the whole course of the rescue operation watching ten-odd helicopters making more than 20 rounds of shuttle flights.

When the operation was nearing completion, he sent a helicopter back, saying that it should go and check for the last attempt as there might be possibly some more people left in the stricken area. Thus, four people came to be rescued, adding to thousands of people airlifted to safe places.

The news that Kim Jong Un paid a congratulatory visit to the helicopter unit that performed feats in the rescue operation has already been reported by media.

The following day, on July 29, he visited again the flooded area by train and told officials they would look round the area by rubber boat.

In fact, he knew the situation better than anyone else.

But he got on the boat as he couldn’t feel easy until he himself experienced the pains of the displaced people and took rehabilitation measures to relieve their agonies there and then.

Immediately after looking round the area for two hours, he summoned the 22nd Emergency Enlarged Meeting of the Political Bureau of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea on the train that stopped near the flooded area.

It took him a good while to set forth tasks and ways for rehabilitation including the issue of stabilizing the flood victims’ living as soon as possible and take important measures against any challenges from possible future disasters.

In due course the meeting would close if a relevant decision was adopted.

But he said: We can’t end the meeting like this. The participants in the meeting should go to the tents in which the flood victims are temporarily sheltering and see their living conditions. They should console and encourage them while lending an ear to their candid voices, and make an in-depth study of rehabilitation proposals before submitting them to the Political Bureau.

This is how the meeting continued into the next day and the officials attending the meeting looked round the damaged area and went among the victims.

After they returned, Kim Jong Un led the meeting to examine and approve the draft resolution.

At the meeting, he said: Let us make everything built anew. Now that we have decided, we should work out good designs to build a fairyland to be envied by any in the world and perform such a historic task through historic practice.

The decision of the Political Bureau of the WPK Central Committee “On rapidly repairing the flood damage in North Phyongan and Jagang Provinces” was recorded in the history of the WPK as a Party decision adopted in the flooded area.

Afterwards, he visited the makeshift tents where the flood victims were temporarily staying to learn about their living conditions and made a speech before them, in which he made public an important measure of putting in place an emergency system, whereby during the restoration work the students and all other children of the afflicted families shall stay in Pyongyang and be provided with a safe and comfortable environment for care and education, entirely at state expense, and state-backed care benefits will be offered in Pyongyang to the elderly and sick persons, honoured disabled ex-soldiers and nursing mothers.

Some days later, the people and children from the flood-stricken areas went over to Pyongyang where they led a comfortable life amid preferential treatment and hospitality of the Party and the government. Even in this period Kim Jong Un paid several visits to the reconstruction sites, during which he gave meticulous guidance and instructions and solved all problems so that the rehabilitation projects could go ahead on the best level.

As reportedly, on December 21 last year, the flood victims moved to the new houses provided with all living conditions in splendidly facelifted villages.

Yang Ryon Hui