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March 28, 2013

Power Hungry: 40.179N, 126.350E

You really can’t see any hint of it in this image, but this is the Huichon Number Two Power Station, the one that allegedly caused Kim Jong Il’s fatal vapor lock because the crappy concrete used to build it cracked when the reservoir was filled.  Or so the unverified rumor holds. You can see video of the dam here, a KNCAP report here that makes no reference to the dam’s problems, some cool pictures here (see #36), and more interesting stuff from Curtis here. I’m...
Categories Google Earth
March 4, 2013

The Fulcrum: 39°24’43.50″N, 125°53’25.70″E

Nearly all of the North Korean aircraft you can see on its airfields are ancient MiGs — 60s vintage or older.  But Sunchon Air Base, the home of the 57th Air Regiment, is where North Korea keeps some of its more modern aircraft — its Su-25 ground attack aircraft, and its MiG-29 fighters. On October 14, 2010, the North Korean ground crews rolled their wares out of their underground hangars.  It was a bright, clear day, giving us an excellent...
Categories Google Earth/NK Military
March 2, 2013

The Road Not Traveled: 40.013N, 126.154E

North Korean public works priorities are a thing to behold. Not far south of Huichon, in central North Korea, I followed a modern-looking superhighway northward to this dramatic terminus at a Bridge to Nowhere. Older (and newer) images on Google Earth show this project has been stalled for a decade. You can scan north from here and see miles of disused roadbed overgrown with farm plots, punctuated by the pilings of the unbuilt bridges. Now have a look at this...
Categories Google Earth
January 28, 2013

Kim Jong Un personality cult now visible to space aliens.

I was snooping around the Hyesan area this weekend, taking in some very recent (October 2012) imagery, when I spotted a propaganda sign — clearly not one of those I’d posted about before. It was next to this reservoir: Look what happens when you switch to the next-most recent image, from October 2005: So all of this is new construction. It says, “Long live Songun Korea’s General Kim Jong Un!,” or somesuch nonsense. But at least they got the damn...
Categories Google Earth
January 9, 2013

Welcome, Reuters and N.Y. Times Readers Entire World

Well, thank you, Reuters Asia Correspondent Paul Eckert.  That was a very nice story, and I’m glad to see that the Times picked it up. This story needs to be told, and unfortunately, right now, only a few of us are telling it.  My hope is that one day, reporters will work directly with defectors and professional imagery analysts to tell it instead, and I can find a new hobby. Update: Overnight, the Reuters story was picked up by news...
Categories Google Earth/The Camps
June 1, 2010

Blatant Plagiarism in the London Daily Telegraph (Update: The Telegraph Credits, Links OFK)

pla ·gia ·rism /ˈpleɪdÊ’əˌrɪzÉ™m, -dÊ’iəˌrɪz-/ [pley-juh-riz-uhm, -jee-uh-riz-] ““noun 1. the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work. You know, I write this with some ambivalence, because I’m always glad to see that the result of many, many hours of scouring North Korea on Google Earth, of poring through scholarly reports, and of cross-checking clues has brought much-needed attention to the horrors of North Korea’s...
Categories Google Earth/Media Criticism/The Camps
January 25, 2010

New Camp 25, Camp 12 Pages

Although I don’t claim that my preliminary identification of the site of Camp 25, Chongjin is yet confirmed by witnesses, two of the former Chongjin residents whose stories are told in Barbara Demick’s “Nothing to Envy” provide a degree of circumstantial corroboration. Judge the evidence for yourself here; however, I can’t say for certain that the site is a prison at all until a credible witness confirms it. I’ve also put up a new page on Camp 12, Chongo-ri. Most...
Categories Google Earth/Human Rights/The Camps
December 18, 2009

New Imagery of North Korea’s Yodok Concentration Camp Shows Northern, Western Boundaries

Since I had first begun to map North Korea’s concentration camp system on Google Earth, it had been a source of frustration to me that the imagery of Camp 15, the infamous Yodok Camp documented in Kang Chol Hwan’s memoir, was of such poor quality and resolution. The other day, my friend Curtis notified me that Google Earth had released much new imagery of North Korea, and with that new imagery, we now have a much better outline of Camp...
Categories Google Earth/Human Rights/The Camps
September 6, 2009

Revealed: The First Published Images of Camp 12, Chongo-Ri, North Korea

Recently, Chosun Ilbo reporter and North Korean gulag survivor Kang Chol Hwan published this story about a remote labor camp in North Korea, its recent expansion to support a crackdown on defectors, and the horrific conditions there: The Chongori reeducation center in North Hamgyong Province that went through the greatest change. The center has been reorganized as a concentration camp exclusively for arrested defectors. It has reportedly turned into a living hell, where labor is much heavier than at ordinary...
Categories Google Earth/Human Rights/Inside NK/The Camps
August 16, 2009

Camps 14 & 18 Google Earth Page Published

It took months to do it, but I’ve finally published a Google Earth page for Camps 14 and 18. This page accumulates all of the newly available witness accounts, scholarly research, and satellite imagery of the camps, which share very little except geographical proximity. I owe my deepest thanks to a reader who forwarded me a copy of the Korean Bar Association’s 2008 human rights report, which proved to be an invaluable resource for this project, and for others to...
Categories Google Earth/Human Rights/The Camps
August 12, 2009

The Palaces of Pyongyang on Google Earth

Congratulations to our friend Curtis Melvin, whose Google Earth imagery of a Kim Jong Il palace in north Pyongyang is currently the Chosun Ilbo’s top story. This palace, I should point out, is one of no less than six very large palaces I know of in the Pyongyang area alone, though I can’t confirm who lives in all of them: This is the one I posted pictures of previously. A Daily NK piece previously confirmed that it’s one of Kim...
Categories Google Earth/Kim Jong Il
May 31, 2009

Unsung Misery

From the London Telegraph comes the story of Hyok Kang, a resident of Onsong, quite possibly the most miserable quarter of North Korea that isn’t a concentration camp, in its extreme northeast.             Kang speaks of a hellish everyday life in which people were publicly executed for stealing copper wire to sell: When the time came, the condemned man was displayed in the streets before being led to the place of execution, where he was...
Categories Google Earth/Human Rights/Refugees