A new North Korean naval destroyer was badly damaged during a botched shipyard launch that caused part of its hull to be “crushed,” Pyongyang state media reported.
The Korean Central News Agency reported on Thursday morning local time that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was attending the ceremony at the Chongjin Shipyard when the “serious accident” occurred.
Blaming “inexperienced command and operational carelessness,” KCNA wrote that the stern of the 5000-ton ship started sliding down a ramp too early and that a flatcar meant to support its weight didn’t move with the vessel.
This report said this caused the ship to lose balance, leaving “some sections of the warship’s bottom crushed” while the rest of the ship was stuck.
Per KCNA, Kim blasted the disastrous launch, saying it was “out of the bounds of possibility and could not be tolerated.”
He also called the launch a “serious accident and criminal act caused by absolute carelessness, irresponsibility, and unscientific empiricism,” state media wrote.
It reported that Kim censured the officials responsible for the ship and its launch, including the country’s munitions department and ship designers, and said their mistakes would be “dealt with” at a party meeting next month.
The North Korean leader was further cited as saying that the mishap “brought the dignity and self-respect of our state to a collapse in a moment.”
The failed launch is a blow to Kim’s military agenda, given his emphasis over the last two years on building up North Korea’s maritime forces.
“A new historic time is coming before our naval forces,” Kim said during a 2023 speech, declaring North Korea would focus on capabilities for projecting naval power beyond its own waters.
The same year, Pyongyang launched a ballistic missile submarine, the Hero Kim Kun Ok, which is a redesigned Soviet model equipped to fire cruise missiles.
Last month, North Korea launched the largest warship it had ever built, a 5000-ton “multipurpose” destroyer, which it said was a new class of armed vessel.
That was at Nampo, a different shipyard. However, its tonnage could indicate that the vessel that failed to launch on Wednesday was in the same class. State media didn’t provide further details about the damaged ship at Chongjin.
In March, North Korea said it was also building its first nuclear-powered submarine.