North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, He described as a “criminal act that” the “serious” accident cannot be tolerated That took place on Wednesday during the launch ceremony of a new destroyer in the Shipyard of Cheongjin, in the northeast of North Korea, Kcna state agency reported.
According to the source, a failure in the synchronized displacement of the launch platforms caused that the 5,000 -tons destroyer stern section be released early and stuckwhich caused structural damage at the base of the ship and prevented the bow from being properly released. “There was a serious accident in which the bow section could not be released due to the click on the stern,” the KCNA explained.
Kim, who witnessed the entire sequence, described the accident as “a criminal act that cannot be tolerated”, attributing it to “Pure negligence, irresponsibility and anti -scientific empiricism”. The North Korean leader directly responsible for several key organizations, including the Department of the Munitioning Industry of the Central Committee of the Workers Party.
Kim warned that those responsible must account for the next plenary meeting of the central committee of the party, scheduled for June, and He considered that the incident damaged national dignity and pride.
The North Korean leader stressed that The urgent restoration of the ship is a “political issue” which directly affects the authority of the State, and ordered that the repairs be completed without fail before the aforementioned meeting.
Colonel Lee Sung-Joon, spokesman for the South Korean General Staff (JCS), told a press conference that the intelligence agencies of South Korea and the US were already following the activity in the Cheongjin shipyard and considered that the attempt of lateral launch had failed.
The information was also published on Thursday on the cover of the North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun. Lee recalled that North Korea has previously revealed other technical failures, such as those related to the launch of military satellites, although it is not the most common.
Before the question of whether an unusual movement has been detected by the North Korean army after the accident, the spokesman declined to comment. This same Thursday, North Korea fired several cruise missiles to the sea of Japan (known as Eastern Sea in the two Koreas), according to the JCS. The South Korean army detected the releases around 09:00 local time (00:00 GMT) from the Seondondok area, in the province of Hamgyong del Sur.
Although the exact number of projectiles was not specified, the authorities confirmed that it was “several cruise missiles”, and that their technical characteristics are being analyzed together with the intelligence agencies of the United States.
This type of public recognition of technical or administrative failures by North Korea is unusualsince the regime usually hides incidents that can be interpreted as signs of weakness or incompetence, especially in strategic sectors such as the military.
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