North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un has detonated explosives creating a massive blast during a groundbreaking ceremony at a construction site in the capital, state-run media has reported.
Footage showed Mr Kim making a speech in Pyongyang on Sunday, surrounded by enthusiastically cheering crowds, before twisting a switch to ignite explosions.
The blast threw enormous clouds of dust and smoke into the air.
The project in the Hwasong suburb aims to build 10,000 flats, part of a five-year plan to construct 50,000 new apartments.
He addressed hundreds of people, reportedly construction workers, who were standing in coordinated sections.
They had been assembled with matching hard hats to create colourful sections in the crowds.
Enthusiastic crowds waved flags, clapped and cheered as Mr Kim arrived for the groundbreaking ceremony
“The Hwasong area will soon become more famous not only as a cradle of the happy and civilised life of the people but as a land of history, which tells new miraculous tales of indomitable socialist Korea,” Mr Kim said in a speech translated by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
The Hwasong district has already seen a number of new apartment blocks over the past few years.
Enormous crowds were assembled in colourful sections in the Hwasong suburb of the capital
Sky News is not able to independently verify the reports as international media is rarely allowed access to North Korea.
Read more from Sky News:
Man jailed over Irish backpacker murder
PM ‘prepared to send troops to Ukraine’
Poll: Reform seen as stronger than Tories
On Sunday Mr Kim also visited his family’s mausoleum on what would have been his father’s birthday.
Kim Jong Il’s birthday, which falls on 16 February, is widely celebrated as a major holiday in North Korea, called the Day of the Shining Star.
Mr Kim visited the mausoleum which houses the embalmed bodies of his father and grandfather
But it was the first time in four years that the young Kim visited the Kumsusan Palace of Sun in the capital Pyongyang, which houses the embalmed bodies of his father and grandfather, for the anniversary.
He pledged to continue the “sacred struggle” for prosperity and security, state media KCNA said on Monday.
