North Korea faces an “unusual” and “severe” drought this year and is working to protect crops, state media said Thursday.
Natural disasters tend to have an outsized impact on the diplomatically isolated country due to its weak infrastructure and economy.
Elizabeth Salmon, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, said in February that food shortages are already a key concern.
“An unusual drought has recently persisted across much of the country, a phenomenon rarely seen in previous years,” Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
“Workers across various regions are concentrating all efforts on protecting early-season crops from the drought,” it added.
In a separate report, KCNA said Premier Pak Thae Song carried out on-site inspections at farms in South Pyongan and North Hwanghae provinces to discuss “countermeasures to minimise drought damage”.
He called for fully identifying and efficiently using all available water sources, adding that a successful harvest hinged on overcoming this year’s “severe drought”, KCNA said.
South Korea — Asia’s fourth-largest economy — also endured a prolonged drought last year that hit the eastern coastal city of Gangneung.
That dry spell forced authorities to implement water restrictions, including shutting off 75 percent of household meters across the city.
KCNA said North Korean cities and counties were carrying out “repairs to the gates of reservoirs and waterways”.
Workers are also implementing “technical measures”, boosting the drought resistance of wheat and barley and striving to ensure the stable growth of early-season crops, it added.
South Korea recorded its hottest summer on record last year, while both the North and the South also saw their warmest June.
Climate change is making heatwaves more frequent and intense, and experts say the seasonal El Nino weather phenomenon will likely return this year.
The weather pattern can bring heat, drought and heavy rain to different parts of Asia.
The North has long endured power shortages, and experts say most residents have no access to air conditioning.
The country was hit by severe flooding in its northern regions near China in 2024, with South Korean media reporting the number of dead and missing in the North due to the disaster could be as high as 1,500.
The North dismissed South Korean reports at the time on the estimated number of people missing.
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