Battleland

Kim Family Mural Destroyed in North Korea

  • Share
  • Read Later
Getty Images

This isn't the collapsed North Korean mosaic wall, but a photo editor's best guess as to what it might look like.

While Pyongyang’s Kim regime hasn’t yet collapsed, a mosaic wall erected to honor the dynasty did, on the eve of the April 15 Day of the Sun festivities meant to celebrate the birthday of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

Conflicting reports leaking out of North Korea claim a defector toppled the 15-by-25-foot mosaic mural, or – a more likely explanation – that corrupt workers and high winds colluded to bring it down. The state has been building many of these tiled walls across the nation to lionize Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il, father of North Korea’s current leader, Kim Jong Un.

“This is the first known occasion whereupon a piece of state construction for the idolization of the North Korean leaders has collapsed in this way,” says a report on DailyNK.com, a website that monitors what is going on inside the secretive Hermit Kingdom. “Given the rarity of the event and the seriousness with which the North Korean leadership takes the idolization project in general, serious censure is thought likely for those deemed to have been responsible.”

The mosaic wall stood at a major four-way intersection in the North Korean city of Musan, across the Tumen River from China. An unnamed (surprise!) source told DailyNK.com that the workers who built the mural stole some of the cement that was meant for its construction, making it too weak to withstand recent winds.

“A lot of people witnessed the collapse because it was built in the town center,” the source added, “so this news will spread rapidly and could easily become political.”