SEOUL – A North Korean naval destroyer damaged in a botched launch last month was successfully set afloat on a second attempt, with leader Kim Jong Un presiding, state media said Friday.
A ceremony for the ship baptized the Kang Kon — after a top North Korean general killed in the 1950-53 war — was held on Thursday at the Rajin shipyard, up the coast from where the botched attempt occurred, according to Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“Just over two weeks since the accident, the ship was safely raised and floated, and today, as planned, complete restoration has been finished,” Kim said, according to KCNA.
Kim has also approved a plan to build two more destroyer-class vessels next year, the agency added.
The decision “heralds a significant and dramatic change in the status and defence activities of (our) Navy,” Kim said, according to KCNA.
Photos released by the agency showed Kim was accompanied by his daughter Ju Ae.
He claimed that the “provocative intentions of the US and its allies” have recently become “more blatant, and the level of threats to our security has clearly gone far beyond the dangerous limit.”
“We must develop our naval power more comprehensively and rapidly so that the enemy cannot even think of carrying out aggressive actions in the waters around us,” the North Korean leader said.
The successful launch comes after Pyongyang last month announced “a serious accident” when workers first tried to put the 5,000-ton destroyer into water in the northeastern port city of Chongjin.
The mishap crushed sections of the bottom of the newly built ship. Pyongyang later covered it with a tarpaulin, satellite images showed.
South Korean intelligence believe North Korea’s so-called “side-launch attempt” of the ship failed, and the vessel was left listing in the water.
