Such a public disclosure is rare for an opaque country that uses the state media almost exclusively to burnish the image of its leadership and emphasize its indomitability. An anonymous South Korean government official told the Yonhap news agency that about 92 households might have been living in the apartment building, potentially signaling a triple-figure death toll.
In its state media, the North emphasized its “profound consolation” for the collapse and devoted several paragraphs to castigating Choe Pu Il, the minister of people’s security. Choe’s crime against the people “can never be pardoned,” the North said. The North’s account added that supreme leader Kim Jong Un “sat up all night” feeling pain after learning about the accident.
Although North Korea is heavily monitored via satellite by outside analysts, Pyongyang’s admission was the first news of the disaster, which occurred Tuesday in a central area of the capital. Some scholars say the North may have publicly divulged the accident as a way to shape gossip that would inevitably spread through the country, where citizens increasingly carry cellphones.