[VOA 뉴스] New bridge over the Yalu River “Road construction” “Transshipment ship” captured again

On the North Korean side of the New Yalu River Bridge, which has not been open for several years, a situation was detected in which large-scale construction has recently begun. Interestingly, this is a move related to opening a bridge to transport goods from China, but another ship transshipment scene was captured in North Korea’s West Sea. This was reported by the journalist Ham Ji-ha. (Video editing: Lee Sang-do)

This is a satellite image of “Planet Labs”, which took a photo of the road on the north side of the Sin Yalu River bridge connecting Sinuiju and Dandong in North Korea.

In this satellite image taken on the 19th, it is confirmed that the yellow covers are placed on the whole 4.5 km stretch of road connected to the end of the bridge on the North Korean side. The coverage began to be covered in early September and since then the coverage area has gradually increased and it is estimated that this is a large-scale construction on the whole section.

This road connects “National Route 1” to Sinuiju at the end of the bridge over the New Yalu River. Construction began in October 2019 and paving work was also carried out when the road took shape in January of the following year.

However, as the border was closed due to the novel coronavirus, the situation of suspension of works, such as the absence of lanes on the road, was detected.

There is currently a “Jo-Joong-Uui Bridge” between Sinuiju in North Korea and Dandong in China, but there are only one-lane tracks and one-lane roads, so there are major restrictions on freight. On the other hand, since the new Yalu River bridge is a four-lane round trip, it is expected that more materials can be transported than before.

In the midst of this, another movement presumed to be a ship-to-ship transhipment was detected in the waters near Chodo in North Korea’s West Sea.

In the Planet Labs satellite image of 18, taken at the southern end of Chodo, ships 90 and 50 meters long respectively face each other and, not far from here, you can see a scene where ships with a length of 50m and 25m they are tangled. . This is a typical illegal transhipment, as pointed out by the North Korea Sanctions Committee of the United Nations Security Council.

The North Korea Special Sanctions Committee of the United Nations Security Council said in its annual report that North Korea is mobilizing a new method of transshipment of ships in its territorial waters rather than on the high seas. has been designated as the new transhipment site.

VOA analyzed Planet Labs satellite imagery and captured 19 suspicious ship-to-ship transshipment scenes since April.

This is Jiha Ham from VOA News.