Recovery Moves Along After 2016 Floods

Between August and September 2016, floods ravaged the northern reaches of North Korea. As I wrote about in December, satellite images showed us the devastation caused by these floods which affected over half a million people.

I'd like to now discuss the satellite images showing the recovery process. These images taken on October 25, 2016, focus on the hard-hit city of Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province.

Image of the flood damage along the river. Google Earth, 9/14/16.

Dyke reconstruction work. Google Earth, 10/25/16.

Reporting coming out of North Korea claim that over a kilometer of dykes has been fully repaired.

In this next image we see new housing being constructed.

Image source: Google Earth, 10/25/16.

This is the DPRK/China border crossing. It received only minor damage, but you can see repair efforts under way as well as trucks coming in from China with relief and construction supplies.
The repair of this border crossing comes after North Korea constructed a new border crossing in Rason (which will be the subject of my next post).

Image source: Google Earth, 10/25/16.

Annual floods cause a fair amount of destruction and death in North Korea, but the northern provinces are often the most badly hit. UNICEF sent aid (including $1 million from the US) to help children and families affected by last year's flood.

-- Jacob Bogle, 4/2/2017

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Terrorism and the Future of North Korea at the United Nations

Image source: Outside the Beltway

After Kim Jong-nam’s assassination with VX nerve agent by emissaries of North Korea in Malaysia on February 13, 2017, calls went up in the United States to have the country re-listed as a state sponsor of terror, and calls from South Korea to have their northern cousins suspended from the United Nations were also registered. But how likely is either scenario?

North Korea was placed on the US terror list in 1988, following the bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 in 1987 which killed 115 people. The country was removed from the list twenty years later in 2008 by president George W. Bush after appearing to satisfy the demands of a nuclear agreement based on the Six Party Talks. And while North Korea has since violated many nuclear terms and agreements, their last "official" act of international terrorism remains the 1987 bombing. That is, until the death of Kim Jong-nam.

What makes Kim Jong-nam’s death more than a simple case of a country assassinating one of its own citizens, is the fact that he was killed in a foreign country and that he was ostensibly under the protection of China – which is also North Korea’s main patron. Jong-nam had been in a state of quasi-exile ever since trying to visit Tokyo Disneyland with a fake Dominican Republic passport in 2001. His main residence since that time had been Macau. Despite no longer holding any official titles, it is alleged that he had a role in maintaining the Kim family slush fund (operated via Office 39), which holds an estimated $5 billion. Kim Jong-un’s motivation for having his half-brother killed are unknown, but it could be for any number of reasons – from coup rumors, to being displeased with public statements Kim Jong-nam had made, to even mismanagement of funds (if he was indeed involved).

Since there is no single supreme definition the United States works with, it could be difficult pin the label "terrorism" onto the incident. The US has several definitions of what constitutes terrorism and what might constitute a state sponsoring terrorism, and these legal standards vary across agencies and have changed over time. However, the use of VX, the deadliest nerve agent known, changes the game. For some background, Section 3 of the Export Administration Act of 1979 says:

"It is the policy of the United States to use export controls to encourage other countries to take immediate steps to prevent the use of their territories or resources to aid, encourage, or give sanctuary to those persons involved in directing, supporting, or participating in acts of international terrorism."

This is where the use of VX becomes very important. VX is classified as a weapon of mass destruction and is banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 (to which North Korea is not party to). The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) defines “terrorist activity” at Section 212(a)(3)(B)(iii):

(IV) An assassination.

(V) The use of any—

                                                                            (a) biological agent, chemical agent, or nuclear                                                                                                               weapon or device,

Additionally, since definitions of "international terrorism" obviously include the activities being carried in other countries, the involvement of a multinational force of conspirators to accomplish the killing (the two women accused of wiping Jong-nam’s face with the nerve agent are from Malaysia and Vietnam), lends weight to the argument that North Korea should be re-listed. However, one possible impediment to this is the fact that many of the standards require that terrorism have a political motive. While there are many theories, there's no smoking gun pointing to a direct political motive to kill Kim Jong-nam. That said, when you consider North Korea's extensive arms trade, including to countries like Syria and Iran (both of which are currently on the list), the case to re-list can be enhanced.

Complicating matters, though, is America’s need to bring North Korea to heel when it comes to the nuclear question, which is America’s key concern and colors every dealing with the country. Re-listing North Korea would result in even greater economic pressures on the state. While this may sound positive, the long-term trend is that whenever North Korea gets backed into a corner, they either strike out in retaliation or proceed with their plans clandestinely. Kim Jong-un has shown no sign of slowing down the nuclear program he inherited and having his regime once again labeled a state sponsor of terrorism is likely to have the opposite wanted effect. Kim Jong-il paid close attention to the destinies of Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein. Gaddafi disarmed Libya of WMDs and was overthrown with the help of the West regardless. Likewise, Saddam Hussein, despite lacking verifiable WMDs, made up part of the Axis of Evil and had his country invaded. No doubt Kim Jong-un has learned the lesson of despots as his father did – disarmament alone is no guarantee of safety.

While the likelihood of North Korea ending back up as a state sponsor of terror is at least 50/50, if history is a guide, the real world long-term results aren't likely to be the desired results.

That takes us to the possibility of having North Korea suspended from the United Nations.

Such an act has never occurred and would require the UN Security Council to recommend the action, from where it would then be approved or disapproved by the General Assembly. As mentioned, North Korea’s last confirmed act of international terrorism was in 1987. Prior to that, North Korea engaged in a number of terrorist activities and supported terrorist groups like the Japanese Red Army. The North’s activities were carried out all around the Asia-Pacific region.

In 1968 North Korean commandos infiltrated South Korea and tried to assassinate then president Park Chung-hee after they raided the Blue House (the South Korean equivalent of the White House). Unsuccessful and undaunted, a second assassination attempt was carried out in 1983. The 1983 attack occurred in Rangoon, Burma when North Korean agents bombed a wreath laying ceremony at which the South Korean president, Chun Doo-hwan, was in attendance. The attack resulted in 67 casualties, including the death of four top-ranking South Korean officials and 17 others.

Apart from the Korean Air Flight 858 bombing in 1987, North Korea had previously hijacked Korean Air Lines YS-11 in 1969. The hijacking ended without any casualties, though, North Korea refused to release eleven of the crew and passengers. To this day their ultimate fates are unknown.

None of these events led to North Korea being suspended from the United Nations. Nor did the killing of two United States Army officers with axes along the DMZ in 1976, or the naval clashes near Yeonpyong Island in 1999 and 2002, or the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan in 2010, or the other 200 plus violations of the 1953 Armistice Agreement by North Korea.

The fact is, so long as China (which is a permanent member of the UN Security Council) remains an ally of North Korea, despite whatever troubles may exist between them, China will likely not allow North Korea to be suspended. China, and to some extent Russia, have opposed many would be actions against North Korea by the international community. North Korea continues to serve as a useful buffer state between China and a liberal South Korea (with their entrenched military alliance with the United States) - with their new THAAD missile defense system. North Korea has also shown itself more than capable of developing ballistic and nuclear technology domestically, and cutting them off from all international associations and possible avenues of rapprochement would only push their backs against the wall even further. As mentioned earlier, each time North Korea has been increasingly isolated they have lashed out, but, in the past, there also remained ways for them to reach out and seek de-escalation (which did occur to varying degrees).

Unilateral actions by other countries can have an effect, although such actions by countries long opposed to the North Korean regime are having diminishing returns. Malaysia has taken steps to show their displeasure with the assassination like expelling North Korea’s ambassador Kang Chol, and rescinding the ability of North Korean citizens to travel to Malaysia without a visa. However, China remains the key figure in any attempt at punishing North Korea or affecting change outside of reigniting war.

Recently, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said during his visit to China that, every option was on the table, including military options, regarding North Korea. China of course tried to play both sides of the fence and suggested we be "cool headed". An all out war is no real option, but the fact remains that the last 20+ years of "cool headed" diplomacy hasn't stopped their nuclear or ballistic missile programs, or led to a more open DPRK. Despite many efforts, their economy remains in tatters and millions still go hungry. China's insistence that we calm down while offering to help in any way possible to relieve tensions on the Korean Peninsula, belies the fact that China has a long history of saying one thing while doing another. China has allowed North Korea to exploit loopholes in UN resolutions to acquire luxury goods and foreign currency (which often ends up in the hands of the military), and even China's latest unilateral action against North Korea - the banning of North Korean coal imports - must be taken with a grain of salt.

Without doubt, North Korea has been squeezed. But we have watched a slow-motion multi-decade catastrophe unfold before our very eyes while we have tried to placate North Korea through the misguided notion that all they want is food and they'll give up their bombs for it. Not only does North Korea have nuclear weapons (and it's time we acknowledge they're a nuclear weapons state instead of pretending they're not), they're on the verge of having a credible first strike capability. Additionally, not only do they have a vast arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, we now know they're not afraid to use them. We are edging ever closer to a point of absolutely no return. Until China is really on-board, any international actions against North Korea will be blunted.

--Jacob Bogle, 3/18/17
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Additional Reading
Arsenal of Terror: North Korea, State Sponsor of Terrorism, by Joshua Stanton

Phase II Map Completed

One year ago today I published Phase I of my #AccessDPRK Mapping Project. I began mapping North Korea in late 2012, little did I know how much of an effort it would take or how expansive a map would result from the over 2,500 hours of work. I won't recount why I started, you can read more about that here, but I do want to stress that this map has become the largest and most comprehensive map of North Korea publicly available, by far.

The Google Earth file contains 53,722 placemarks covering three main areas of interest: the military, monuments, and domestic/economic sites. There are 9,567 military sites, 8,859 monument markers representing 9,879 individual monuments, and 35,296 domestic sites. Because I started mapping after I discovered Curtis Melvin's map and because I updated and incorporated his North Korea Uncovered into mine, I would like to say that of the 53,722 places, 8,430 of them came from North Korea Uncovered.

The file is divided according to each province and each province is divided into those three main areas (some have an extra division). Those three divisions are further sub-divided into item-specific folders (anti-aircraft artillery, dams, palaces, etc.). Typically, the military division has around 20 folders and the domestic division has around 40. The monument division is just a single folder containing all of the monuments in its respective province. There is also an "Additional Items" folder that has things like all the country's airports and a list of mountains. And, there is a file dedicated to the De-Militarized Zone with 1,401 places marked.

Because of the size of the KMZ file (4.76 MB - which is huge by Google Earth terms), don't try to view the whole thing at once. Expand the file and pick out which province you'd like to review and then what item folders you want. There are many ways to explore the information within, just take a little time to get used to the layout so you don't accidentally crash Google Earth (although, most modern computers can handle having the entire file open, it may be sluggish).

The next part of #AccessDPRK is to create a series of topic-specific files. For example, the country's electrical grid. This will allow those with narrower interests to view the information they want without the need to dig through mountains of data. However, there is no firm time set for me to build and publish those maps. After working on this for so long, I'm in the mood to take things more slowly now.

Map showing every monument in North Korea. Click for larger view (opens in new window).

[Note: the download link to the 2017 map has been removed as the 2021 version was made available.]

Below is a breakdown of the number of items per province and other main folders. As soon as I can I will also add some graphics showing how many of each item there are (like the fact there's active 1,539 anti-aircraft artillery batteries).


Phase II Complete Item Counts - March 5, 2017

Chagang Province = 2,695
   Military: 162
   Monument: 544 markers rep. 585 monuments
   Domestic: 1,989

Kangwon Province = 4,443
   Military: 1,131
   Monument: 762 markers rep. 928 monuments
   Domestic: 2,550

N. Hamgyong Province = 4,690
   Military: 450
   Monument: 765 markers rep. 796 monuments
   Domestic: 3,475

S. Hamgyong Province = 6,300
   Military: 627
   Monument: 1,053 markers rep. 1,154 monuments
   Domestic: 4,620

N. Hwanghae Province = 5,833
   Military: 1,347
   Monument: 946 markers rep. 1,100 monuments
   Domestic: 3,540

S. Hwanghae Province = 6,304
   Military: 1,008
   Monument: 1,054 markers rep. 1,146 monuments
   Domestic: 4,242

N. Pyongan Province = 5,581
   Military: 716
   Monument: 1,049 markers rep. 1,145 monuments
   Domestic: 3,816

S. Pyongan Province = 7,002
   Military: 1,134
   Monument: 1,205 markers rep. 1,325 monuments
   Domestic: 4,663

Pyongyang District = 6,150
   Military: 1,129
   Monument: 1,049 markers rep. 1,230 monuments
   Water supply: 290
   Domestic: 3,682

Rason District = 531
   Military: 42
   Monument: 94 markers rep. 99 monuments
   Domestic: 395

Ryanggang Province = 2,183 total
   Military: 95
   Monument: 338 markers rep. 371 monuments
   Domestic: 1,626
   Mt. Paektu: 126 - inc. 2 duplicates not inc. in counts elsewhere

DMZ-area Road Blocks: 198
DMZ: 1,401 + 394 miles of fence
Tall Mountains: 245
Airports: 127 (108 runways and 19 waypoints)
UN Joint Security Area: 5
Border Crossings: 24
Large intersections: 10


**********Grand Totals**********
Grand Total: 53,722 markers
   Military: 8,201 + DMZ/RBs/Airports = 9,567
   Monuments: 8,859 markers representing 9,879 monuments
   Domestic (inc. Border/Intersections/Mts) = 35,296


NOTE: AccessDPRK maps, articles, or other creations may not be used for commercial purposes without the express authorization of Jacob Bogle.


--Jacob Bogle, 3/5/17
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What's The Point?

I have been talking about North Korea and mapping the country for over four years now, and a question people ask me fairly often is, 'what's the point?' My normal answers tend to revolve around my own inherent interest in the country and in mapping, however, there is a far more concrete value to this endeavor than simply satiating my curiosity.

North Korea is more than just some rouge state hellbent on gaining nuclear weapons. It's a dynamic country with 25 million people, all of whom share a 2,100 year history with 50 million of their southern brethren. And, yes, they also have a deep military state that is always seeking ways to hide their more dangerous activities. And because of all of this, things change - and much remains unknown. Current collections of nation-wide data are years out of date and resources like Google Maps are often woefully inadequate.

Because their military activities tend to get the outside world to pay attention more than anything, I think the best example of the benefits of the #AccessDPRK Mapping Project is to show how some of these military areas have drastically changed over the last decade.

This image shows each of the 318 active anti-aircraft artillery batteries in Pyongyang.

And this shows each of the 108 decommissioned artillery batteries in the area.

Because of the reliance on older maps and information, just about every crowd-sourced mapping site (Wikimapia, Openstreet, etc) has these inactive places marked. Several of them have been completely demolished and turned into farm land but exists on maps as artillery sites!

It's not just Pyongyang. I have located 386 decommissioned artillery sites all over North Korea, many of them, unfortunately, are on maps. Furthermore, of the 1,358 known active sites, some 500 aren't on any map.

On the domestic side, hundreds of additional dams and hydroelectric power stations can be accounted for. Here are some in Chagang Province:

And speaking of the shared history of Korea, #AccessDPRK now has 346 ancient sites mapped - an increase of 119 new places found since my article on the subject back in February 2016. As far as I have been able to find, at least half of these sites aren't on any maps available online (or anywhere else that I can find). This doesn't include hundreds of centuries old burial mounds and tombs either.

Furthermore, the project will also allow people to see some of the tremendous natural changes that have occurred, like an enormous landslide in the ecologically important Mt. Chilbo National Park, or the damage done in recent flooding.

It would be difficult to detail every value of a map with over 50,000 places marked, but I hope I've adequately expressed the point of this effort.

--Jacob Bogle 1/27/17

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Activity Spotted at Possible Nuclear Site

There's a massive underground complex hidden away in the hills of North Korea. For years it has laid dormant (as far as one can tell), that is until recently. The facility at Hagap (40° 04′ 48″ N, 126° 10′ 56″ E), is a suspected underground nuclear site, either to store material or produce it.

According to Dr. Jeffery Lewis, at Armscontrolwonk.com, the site became publicly known in 1998 (the US government knew about it since 1996) and was constructed at the same time as another underground site, Kumchangni (40° 7' 8 "N 125° 8' 32"E). Since such a site could possibly violate the bilateral 1994 Agreed Framework, North Korea didn't say a word about the place. After the site became public, the US managed to send a delegation to visit it. They didn't find much besides an oddly designed underground facility.

The debate about what exactly is going on at Hagap continues to this day. It has been speculated that the site is used for nuclear materials storage, centrifuge production, or even just a large secure warehouse for archival materials. However, the connection with Kumchangni still remains. There is a third site too, at Yeongjeo-ri (Ryanggang Province), but little is known about it.

North Korea's nuclear program has been ramping up since the final days of Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong Un seems to be increasing that pace. In the light of that, it is disconcerting to see fairly substantial new activity happening at Hagap.

(Click image for larger view.)

At the site you can see a large mound of new rock debris which has been piled up in the pond below the main entrance. You can also see an increase in the number of small buildings and debris that are in the small valley.

Here are some closeup images:

This one shows the debris mound.

This image shows the extended activity area with new buildings.

There is also an odd collection of towers nearby. They look like electrical transmission pylons, but are clustered together into three groups. There are no visible power lines either. It's possible these were laid out when Hagap was originally constructed to provide power, but haven't been needed since the site was largely abandoned. Or they could be some kind of radar/communication array. The towers are located around a bend in a river with small hills on either side, those hills have an anti-aircraft artillery battery stationed on each one. If you'd like to study the area further, it can be found here  40° 4' 50"N 126° 6' 35"E.

--Jacob Bogle, 1/12/2016
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New launching/landing sites constructed?

UPDATE: These have been confirmed as emergency parking positions for jets, since highways can be used as auxiliary airfields (and North Korea does have at least 14 official "emergency highway strips").


On the heels of Kim Jong-un suggesting that the country is very close to testing another ICBM, I've discovered three sites that could be used as dedicated mobile-missile-launcher pads.

These sites were constructed in 2016 and have the same general design.

The first and largest is near Kaesong and lies less than 10 miles (16 km) from the Demilitarized Zone with South Korea.

Located adjacent to the Pyongyang-Kaesong Highway, by the village of Haeson-ri, this site was under construction in March and had been completed by October 2016.

Each pad is 45 feet (14 meters) wide and the straight portion is 175 feet (53 meters) long. The area around it also contains numerous bunkers and tunnels.

The second site is in Pyongsong, South Pyongan Province, which is 21 miles (34 km) north-northeast of the center of Pyongyang.

Just like the Kaesong site, this one is located adjacent to a main highway. In this case, National Highway 65. The area also has a high concentration of HARTS (Hardened ARTillery Sites), which are marked by the red dots. Several additional military facilities are also nearby.

Lastly, the third site is similar in its size and the fact it's right off a highway, but its design is different. The primary difference is a lack of a central berm. This site is located near Sukchon, also on South Pyongan.

If these are indeed dedicated pads for launching missiles, it would be in line with North Korea's continued modernization and expansion of their offensive capabilities.

________________________________________________________________________________________
I'd like to make a quick note about the #AccessDPRK Mapping Project. Across North Korea, I have located 9,500 military related places. I have finished the primary mapping process and am now working on incorporating the work of two others into a main and comprehensive single file. After that, the entire body of work will be published.

--Jacob Bogle 1/6/2017
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Over Half Million Affected by Floods

Flooding during monsoon season is an annual problem for North Korea, especially given its mountainous terrain and poor land management practices. Heavy flooding in August is said to have affected some 600,000 people according to North Korea's Red Cross Society. Urgent aid was needed as winter comes early and harsh, particularly for those in northern areas (which also tend to receive less government attention and assistance in general).

Map of Tumen River.

The primary river in the northeast of the country is the Tumen, which flows from Mt. Paektu and forms part the DPRK-China border and near it's mouth, the DPRK-Russia border. The river drains some 5,000 square miles (13,000 sq. km) of rugged and mountainous areas of North Korea.

According to the Korean Central News Agency, reconstruction has now finished in Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province, including a new kilometer-long dike to protect against further flooding of the Tumen.

Here are some satellite images of the flood damage along the river, including the cities of Hoeryong and Musan. The occassional curvy and thin yellow line is the map border between North Korea and China. Simply click on any picture and you'll be able to see larger versions.

This is a before and after image showing flooding behind the old Tumen River Dike. It shows a new river channel and destroyed buildings.

Here is a picture of one of several portions of road that was washed out along a tributary to the Tumen in the Hoeryong region.

The next two pictures give a before and after view of a Hoeryong neighborhood that was completely destroyed by the floods.

Nearby is the only non-rail bridge that connects that neighborhood to the rest of the city. The flood took out a section of it.

Moving up river, toward Musan, there's a section that shows distinct flood damage. You can see debris and mud built up in the river bed, discoloration of the land where crops were destroyed, and a road that was "smeared" out as the Tumen overflowed its banks.

Here is a small village that was almost completely erased.
Before the flood:

After:

In Musan, the destruction wasn't limited to just a flooded river. Musan is a key mining city and sits in a series of vallies with steep hills and mountains surrounding it, there's a tributary river running through it and then, lastly, the Tumen cuts off the western side.

Here you can see buildings destroyed by the Tumen.

And here are homes that were buried in mud and rocks as otherwise dry ephemeral mountain streams turned into raging torrents.

Finally, the Hoeryong border crossing facility was also severely damaged. At least two of the buildings suffered major damage and the land around the facility was wrecked. In the satellite image you can also see some of the construction equipment as the government tries to clear the area and make repairs.

--JacobBogle, 12/2/2016
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