N. Koreans mark Foundation Day with floral offerings

A holiday in North Korea on Wednesday comes amid testing times as the country struggles to recover from a string of typhoons, and not let down its guard against Covid-19.

The 9th of September marks the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the country. Two years ago on this day, a giant parade went through the centre of Pyongyang, the typical North Korean-style celebration of a major anniversary at five-year intervals.

This year, there was no major event, but people are still expected to go through the routine displays of loyalty by laying flowers at statues and portraits of their former leaders, all over the country.

A small group of senior officials from the ruling Workers' Party of Korea made a separate offering at the Patriotic Martyrs' Cemetery on the outskirts of Pyongyang. It is a showcase for the people that North Korea officially considers to have contributed to the country's liberation and development.

Although it's a sunny day in Pyongyang, elsewhere North Koreans are grappling with the aftermath of Typhoons Bavi, Maysak, and Haishen. They all hit the country in the past few weeks, just after an earlier storm caused flooding and destruction.

Thousands of homes have been destroyed and farmland damaged, North Korean state media have reported.

Leader Kim Jong Un has mobilised thousands of residents from the comparatively privileged capital Pyongyang to go to help recovery in typhoon-hit areas, as well as sending in the army, which often is tasked with construction and recovery work.

And North Korea is still keeping its international borders closed in the longest-running lockdown this year - the halt of travel in and out of the country started in late January.

Since then, North Korea has acknowledged only one possible case of Covid-19, which it said involved a rare returnee from South Korea making an illicit journey across the usually carefully guarded demilitarized zone separating the two parts of the Korean Peninsula.