Category: Google Earth

You really can’t see any hint of it in this image, but this is the Huichon Number Two Power Station, the one that allegedly caused Kim Jong Il’s fatal vapor lock because the crappy concrete used to build it cracked when the reservoir was filled.  Or so the unverified rumor holds. You can see video of the dam here, a KNCAP report here that makes no reference to the dam’s problems, some cool pictures here (see #36), and more interesting stuff from Curtis here. I’m...

North Korean public works priorities are a thing to behold. Not far south of Huichon, in central North Korea, I followed a modern-looking superhighway northward to this dramatic terminus at a Bridge to Nowhere. Older (and newer) images on Google Earth show this project has been stalled for a decade. You can scan north from here and see miles of disused roadbed overgrown with farm plots, punctuated by the pilings of the unbuilt bridges. Now have a look at this...

I was snooping around the Hyesan area this weekend, taking in some very recent (October 2012) imagery, when I spotted a propaganda sign — clearly not one of those I’d posted about before. It was next to this reservoir: Look what happens when you switch to the next-most recent image, from October 2005: So all of this is new construction. It says, “Long live Songun Korea’s General Kim Jong Un!,” or somesuch nonsense. But at least they got the damn...

Hat tip: Curtis.

Found 4.7 kilometers due south of Sinuiju Station: It’s not on David Hawk’s map. The Sinuiju Detention Center is a nondescript building inside Sinuiju itself. So does anyone know anyone from that area, who can give some ground-level confirmation? Update: A later photo shows new construction:

Reports that Kim Jong Il is now staying in his coastal palace at Wonsan led me to a few discoveries, which I share with you in this updated post. As it turns out, there are two large palaces at Wonsan, and there’s plenty lot of evident misery for everyone else.