N. Korea's Ryongchon blast site reborn with Soviet-era complexes

By Sam Kim

SEOUL, Nov. 6 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has built Soviet-style apartment complexes to face-lift its border town of Ryongchon where a 2004 explosion devastated the lives of thousands of people, according to a satellite image compiled by a U.S. researcher.

The April 22 blast in the rural northwestern town near China took place several
hours after leader Kim Jong-il passed through its railway station, fueling
suspicions that the incident may have been an assassination attempt by his
opponents.
The North announced later that highly explosive ammonium-nitrate fertilizer being
shunted at the station had hit an electric cable in an accident, triggering an
explosion that killed some 160 people and injured 1,300.
The casualties included nearly 80 children at the town's primary school while
over 8,000 residents were displaced with thousands of homes razed or damaged by
the blast as powerful as 100 1-ton bombs.
"In 2004, much of the town of Ryongchon was tragically destroyed in a large
explosion," wrote Curtis Melvin, a George Mason University doctoral student who
runs one of the most extensive blogs on the economy and geography of the
communist country.
According to the satellite image compiled by Melvin, which was monitored by
Yonhap News Agency on Friday, Ryongchon has since been transformed from ashes to
a specimen of modernity and orderliness.
"Gone are the traditional homes," Melvin wrote. "They have been replaced by
typical Soviet-style apartment blocks."
Melvin said in an emailed interview that the image was compiled from publicly
available sources, including Globalsecurity.org and Google Earth.
"This style of architecture makes it easier for the local 'inmin-ban' to keep an
eye on the residents. All the residents will have to come and go through the same
doors," he said, referring to the North's state-run neighborhood surveillance
unit.
Kim In-han, an architecture professor at Seoul's Kyunghee University, agreed that
the buildings resembled those found in the now-defunct Soviet Union --
Pyongyang's Cold War-era benefactor.
"The ones in the center appear to be the poshest. They could be for party or
government officials," said Kim, who co-chairs the building construction
committee of the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO.
"The apartments shown on either side are probably for commoners," he said, adding
some buildings in the center could be government offices. "Not a trace of the
disaster. Nice comeback."
"These new homes are probably better insulated from the cold and are likely
equipped for indoor heating, plumbing, and electricity," Melvin said. "Also, if
the residents want to move or 'sell' their house on the black market, they would
probably get a better price."
In August this year, Melvin released a satellite photo of a mansion that he said
belongs to Kim Jong-il, the 67-year-old dictator denounced worldwide for alleged
human rights abuses.
Kim was traveling back from a surprise trip to China when the Ryongchon tragedy,
first reported by Yonhap, occurred. In a rare gesture, his regime openly asked
for aid and invited international relief groups to the area.
Reports soon followed that Ryongchon was quickly recovering from the blast with
assistance pouring in from across the world, including the North's 1950-53 Korean
War foe, South Korea.
Melvin, who studies economics, visited North Korea earlier this decade, and has
been featured by international media for his efforts to "uncover" the secretive
North through satellite images and private photos.
samkim@yna.co.kr
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