North Korea makes rare public appeal for flood relief

North Korea usually projects itself to the world as a fully functioning worker’s paradise.

Yet severe flooding in the country’s northeast has resulted in a rare admission that all is not so well.

According to a report published Sunday by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) – North Korea’s official state media – the country’s northeast has been affected by the “heaviest downpour” since 1945, with “tens of thousands” of buildings destroyed and people left homeless and “suffering from great hardship.”

Figures released by the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs confirmed the natural disaster.

Citing North Korean government data, the report described how heavy rains resulting from Typhoon Lionrock had triggered flooding in areas such as Musan and Yonsa counties and Hoeryong City in North Hamgyong province. So far, 133 people have been killed, 395 people are missing and 140,000 people are in “urgent need of assistance.”

Keeping wider social discontent at bay

The sheer scale of the disaster has led the North Korean government to ask for help.

“It’s not unheard of, but it’s rare for the North Korean government to make an open and public call for assistance,” Bradley Williams, a international relations professor at City University in Hong Kong, told CNN.

The KCNA report stated how the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) had sent a public appeal to party members and service personnel of the Korean People’s Army to pool their efforts toward recovery operations to help those in the worst-hit regions. According to the report, the WPK even redirected a nationwide 200-day mass mobilization campaign aimed at boosting the economy toward helping flood victims.

A new type of intermediate-range missile, the Pukguksong-2, was launched by North Korea on February 12.

It was their first launch since US President Donald Trump took office.

Images published by North Korean state media purport to show a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) off the eastern coast of the Korean peninsula on Saturday, April 23, 2016. Five days later, South Korea claims the North launched two more missiles on April 28 that failed.

In March, 2016, state media says Pyongyang has miniaturized nuclear warheads.

On February 9, 2016 South Korea's Defense Ministry releases images of debris believed to be a part of North Korean rocket, which was launched on February 7. Pyongyang said it had successfully launched Earth observation satellite Kwangmyongsong-4 into orbit.

On January 6, North Korea claims to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. Seismic waves indicate an "artificial earthquake" near Punggye-ri, North Korea's main nuclear testing site.

On May 9, 2015, North Korea state media reports the country has successfully fired a "cutting-edge" anti-ship missile from a submarine.

North Korea test-fired a new "ultra-precision" intelligent rocket to be deployed across its navy, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said on February 7, 2015.

North Korea conducted its third nuclear test on February 12, 2013 -- the first under Kim Jong Un. The nuclear test site and water cooling plant are seen in this satellite image.

This picture from KCNA on December 12, 2012 shows the North Korean rocket Unha-3, carrying the satellite Kwangmyongsong-3, lifting off from the launching pad in North Korea.

A missile is displayed during a military parade to mark 100 years since the birth of North Korea's founder Kim Il-Sung in Pyongyang on April 15, 2012.

This undated file picture released by KCNA on January 5, 2009 shows an artillery unit conducting a drill at an undisclosed location in North Korea.

North Korea's weapons tests

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Chris Staines, the head of a Red Cross delegation to North Korea, said he witnessed how the floods had “destroyed everything in their path” during a government-led trip to North Hamgyong province between 6 and 9 of September.

Shelter will be a major concern in the coming months, Staines said in a statement.

“Thousands of homes will need to be rebuilt before winter sets in and by the end of October overnight temperatures can plummet to sub-zero,” he added.

Flood in DPRK.

North Korea ranks 178th in the 2016 Index of Economic Freedom and has an exceptionally bad human rights record, according to a report released by Human Rights Watch in 2016.

Williams told CNN that the flood-ravaged areas were known for being particularly impoverished, with prison camps and forces considered hostile to the regime found there. Williams suggested that rather than care for the well-being of the people in the area, the WPK’s concern was for the perpetuity of the regime, and that their only concern for the region would be if this could “feed into wider social discontent” that could provoke an uprising.

Increasingly at odds with the international community

North Korea’s public announcement of these devastating floods comes a few days after a fifth nuclear missile test, which drew the international community’s unanimous condemnation. The United Nations Security Council is planning sanctions on the nation.

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It still remains to be seen whether North Korea’s public announcement of these floods had an intended effect on the international community.

“Considering North Korea made this call in English, perhaps there is a distant hope that given the scale of the disaster, maybe the international community might respond,” said Williams. r

“But these hopes are undermined by their recent nuclear test – it’s hard to pinpoint the psychology behind it.”

CNN’s Rebecca Wright and Michael Guy contributed to this report.