Heavy rain and flooding in North Korea cause mass evacuation

Over 5,000 people in North Korea evacuated as floods damaged over 1,000 homes.
Sinuiju, a city neighboring the North Korea/China border instructed residents to evacuate to nearby mountains or highlands should an emergency siren sound.
A European Union’s Humanitarian Aid Department official told a Radio Free Asia that they stand “ready to provide assistance if border measures are loosened to allow for the import of aid materials and entry of international humanitarian personnel”.

North Korea’s economy in 2020 contracted the most since their deadly famine in the 1990s due to the coronavirus, natural disasters and international sanctions.
According to a recent Bank of Korea report, North Korea’s exports last year dropped 68% to just $90 million, while imports fell 74%.
Economic hardship has not stopped Kim’s nuclear arsenal growth, producing enough fissile material annually for about six nuclear bombs.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-30/north-korea-s-economy-contracted-most-in-two-decades-in-2020

COVID-19 was the biggest reason for North Korea’s decision not to participate in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
When North Korea does show up at the Olympics, sports often take a back seat to politics.
If North Korea participated in Tokyo, they could have seen success in weightlifting, boxing, women’s wrestling and women’s marathon.
Kim Jong Un may use the North’s absence from the Tokyo Games as a way to signal to his people that he values protecting them from the coronavirus more than the possible glory of medals

The US, South Korea, China, and Russia are among a list of countries that have offered vaccines to Pyongyang.
The offers have gone unheeded. Kim Jong Un’s regime refuses help and spares no efforts to brag about the superiority of its health care system through their propaganda machinery.
A lack of refrigeration facilities to properly transport and store vaccines also likely inhibits North Korea’s responsiveness for access to outside vaccines
Even if North Korea manages to secure vaccines, the quantity will be barely enough to vaccinate even just a fraction of the population of 25 million North Koreans.
Pyongyang may find any public gesture of COVID-19 aid from Seoul as “humiliating.” And that Kim considers North Korea’s supposed virus-free status as “one of the greatest feats of his leadership.”