Published: 10:45, June 6, 2025 | Updated: 11:07, June 6, 2025
Damaged DPRK destroyer conducts end launching after balance restored
By Xinhua
This satellite image provided by Airbus DS, shows a blue tarp covering a DPRK destroyer after it suffered a failed launch while it was being put to sea in Chongjin, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, May 22, 2025. (PHOTO / HANDOUT VIA AP)

PYONGYANG - A field restoration promotion team of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) had restored the balance of a newly-built destroyer, which was damaged during its launch accident, and "moored it at the pier by safely conducting its end launching Thursday afternoon," the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Friday.

The field restoration promotion team informed the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) of its work to restore the damaged destroyer on Thursday, said the KCNA.

"The team will start the next-stage restoration after the reexamination of a group of experts into the overall hull of the destroyer," it said, adding that the next-stage restoration "is to be carried out at the dry dock of the Rajin Dockyard for the period of 7-10 days."

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Jo Chun-ryong, secretary of the WPK Central Committee, who is guiding the work of the field restoration promotion team, said that the perfect restoration of the destroyer will be completed without failure before the convening of the Twelfth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the WPK.

Authorities have launched a full investigation after the newly built 5,000-ton-class destroyer suffered a "serious accident" during its launch at the Chongjin Shipyard on May 21. Several people including Ri Hyong Son, vice director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Central Committee of the WPK, had been detained by law enforcement authorities over the failed launch, according to KCNA reports.