North Korean teens and twenty-somethings with no prior construction experience have nearly completed a new 80-story skyscraper in Pyongyang in under seven months, according to state media on Monday, as part of a project to give youth “hardship” experiences.

The Rodong Sinmun reported that young workers built a new floor every 14 hours to “complete the 80-story residential building framework construction” before the Oct. 10 Workers’ Party foundation holiday.

This suggests the project has faced problems and delays after leader Kim Jong Un originally ordered the nation’s youth to finish the entire 4,100-home Sopho district skyscraper street project before Oct. 10.

Photos published with the report show workers at a topping-out ceremony on the setback roof of the Art Deco style 80-story tower on an unknown date.

State media has not disclosed the precise height of the new skyscraper or another 80-story tower built in southeast Pyongyang in 2021, but both appear shorter than the North’s tallest building — the 105-story pyramid shaped Ryugyong Hotel, which has sat unfinished and unopened for over 30 years.

The Sopho street project involves construction of over 40 new buildings, according to initial design renders released in state media, including 80-, 60- and 40-story skyscrapers at the north end of the street, as well as shopping centers and schools.

State media has largely hidden images of the buildings under construction, but they appear to be made primarily from concrete and rebar, as with all other North Korea’s skyscrapers.

NK News analysis of Planet Labs satellite imagery shows foundation work on the 80-story skyscraper started in early March but that the first floors didn’t start going up until late May.

A high-resolution image taken on Sept. 24 showed it and other buildings in advanced framework stages, but overall unfinished. 

State media has not revealed the new deadline for the project, but recent reports have repeated that the “completion date is coming up.”

CONSTRUCTION SITE CONDITIONS

Authorities mobilized over 100,000 students and young workers from around the country to “volunteer” to join the Sopho project at government organized rallies at the start of the year, and they have lived in sprawling tent camps at the construction site in northern Pyongyang since then.

Kim warned the young workers at the project’s official groundbreaking ceremony in February that they would “encounter difficulties from the outset” and “struggle as you will have to complete the colossal project in a short span of time.”

“Because you lack in experience and skills and you are unaccustomed to much work, you may waver or feel feeble-hearted,” he said, adding they should work with “loyalty and patriotism” to “break through any trials and hardships.”

Monday’s Rodong Sinmun report said workers faced a “difficult and increasingly unfavorable situation where the construction requirement of the number of homes is increasing all the time.”

This likely refers to how the target number of homes grew from 3,700 in Kim’s December plenum speech to 4,000 at the groundbreaking ceremony and then finally 4,100 after the ceremony, likely leading to complicated redesigns.

The Rodong Sinmun reported on Oct. 5 that some young people were working overnight shifts to build the towers after working at their other jobs or attending school in the capital during the day.

The newspaper said on Oct. 2 that medical teams have been extremely busy going around the construction site “day and night” tending to workers “without holidays or rest days,” hinting at a possibly high number of injuries or health issues.

State media has reported in the past on medical problems and deaths at construction sites associated with lack of experience and pressure to complete tasks quickly, such as when an 18-year-old “virgin girl” reportedly died from overwork at a greenhouse farm project last year. 

Kim Jong Un reportedly told the state-run construction industry in early 2022 to “overcome its bias toward focusing on speed and finishing by a certain date” and instead concentrate on quality, but state media has nonetheless continued to emphasize the importance of speed.

The Sopho project appears to be part of a multi-tiered effort from Kim Jong Un to put young North Koreans through difficult situations to toughen them up in preparation for joining the military and sacrificing personal desires to protect Kim’s ruling system. 

Kim also ordered children to participate in construction and military drills at a school for orphans last year as part of this plan. 

The state-run Arirang Meari reported on Oct. 3 that another 18-year-old “virgin girl” at the Sopho project appeared “frail” at first but that she now “doesn’t fear any hardship or suffering” after being put to work.

“Honestly until just recently I was still acting like a spoiled baby under my parents roof,” the unnamed girl reportedly said, adding that “everything [about building skyscrapers] was unfamiliar to me when I first arrived.”

“Truly, devoting the prime of your youth to the Fatherland means that even suffering becomes like a joy and doesn’t seem bad.” 

Edited by Alannah Hill