North Korea’s Kim Jong Un irate after destroyer is damaged during launch

SEOUL — North Korea’s efforts to modernize its navy — and its military pride — have been damaged after its newest warship partially capsized during a launch ceremony, with leader Kim Jong Un calling the “catastrophic failure” a “criminal act,” state media reported Thursday.

Kim — who was present at what was supposed to be a celebration — sharply criticized the officials, scientists and shipyard workers involved.

Taking the relatively rare step of publicly acknowledging the failure, Kim said it was caused by “absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism” and promised to punish those responsible.

The incident “brought the dignity and self-respect of our state to a collapse in a moment,” according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea fired cruise missiles into the waters to the east of the Korean Peninsula in the hours after the state media report.

People at Seoul train station in South Korea watch a television broadcast about North Korea launching cruise missiles on May 22.

During the ceremony at a shipyard in the northeastern port city of Chongjin on Wednesday, the 5,000-ton destroyer — North Korea’s answer to an Aegis, the American integrated naval system — was being launched sideways from the quay into the water.

But the stern slid into the water first, crushing the hull and causing the ship to lose balance. The report did not specify what caused the accident.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the vessel was lying on its side in the water on Thursday. South Korean and U.S. authorities had been monitoring the launch and determined that the side launch had failed, spokesman Lee Sung-joon said.

The failure was particularly embarrassing for Kim, not only because he was present for it. He ordered the ship to be restored by a key meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party in late June.

North Korea’s newest and largest warship is his “pride and political achievement,” said Yang Uk, a North Korea military expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. “I suspect there wasn’t enough preparation” before the launch in front of the North Korean leader, Yang said.

Accidents like these don’t happen if the ship is perfectly balanced, he said. “This accident means that the destroyer itself has a problem,” Yang said.

Satellite images last week showed that the destroyer was preparing to be side-launched from the quay, an unusual method for North Korea, according to a May 15 report by the North Korea-focused website 38 North.

“The use of this launch method could be one of necessity, as the quay where the ship is being built does not have an incline,” according to 38 North.

In this photo provided by the North Korean government, leader Kim Jong Un, center, and his daughter, right, attend a ceremony in April to unveil a new naval destroyer at the western port of Nampo. An attempt to launch a second destroyer this week went wrong, angering Kim, who called it a “criminal act.”

The damaged vessel appears to be a second Choe Hyon-class warship, the first of which North Korea unveiled with great fanfare in April, the South Korean military said.

The Choe Hyon is North Korea’s largest warship and is said to be capable of conducting integrated combat operations. It is named after a Korean guerrilla fighter who battled the Japanese in the 1930s and was a friend of North Korea’s founder, the current leader’s grandfather.

Kim has touted the ship’s “antiaircraft, anti-ship, anti-submarine and anti-ballistic missile capabilities.”

“They didn’t say it, but they sure made it look like an Aegis destroyer,” said Yang, the military expert.

When the first Choe Hyon destroyer was launched in April, experts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said it could be part of a significant improvement in capability.

“Should the design of the Choe Hyon be successful and lead to a new class of destroyers, these developments in conjunction with Kim’s aspiration for a cruiser and a nuclear-powered submarine will significantly augment a new naval threat to the Korean Peninsula and the region for the U.S. and South Korea,” they said in a report.

North Korea may have received Russian assistance to build the Choe Hyon destroyer, the South’s military has said, as a part of the growing military cooperation between the two nations after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

These ships are a key element of Kim’s efforts to upgrade his nuclear-capable arsenal and modernize his navy. North Korea has claimed it is also building a nuclear-powered submarine and underwater nuclear attack drones.

But Wednesday’s botched launch showed that Kim’s newest vessels may not be ready for prime time for a while.

“This accident will set the program back by at least several months. Both the slipway and the ship’s hull will require extensive repairs,” said Carl Schuster, a naval analyst based in Hawaii.

It will take two to five weeks alone to right the ship, and then cleanup and repair operations will begin, Schuster said. The hull was probably flooded with water, and workers will need to purge the seawater and sediment that went into the machinery and electrical equipment before they can resume repairs, he said.

“This type of accident is typical of what happens when one rushes a project with an inexperienced work crew,” Schuster said.