Kim Urges North Koreans to Keep up Virus Fight

FILE PHOTO: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un poses for photos in Pyongyang in this January 1, 2019 photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
FILE PHOTO: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un poses for photos in Pyongyang in this January 1, 2019 photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
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Kim Urges North Koreans to Keep up Virus Fight

FILE PHOTO: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un poses for photos in Pyongyang in this January 1, 2019 photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
FILE PHOTO: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un poses for photos in Pyongyang in this January 1, 2019 photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un urged officials to maintain alertness against the coronavirus, warning that complacency risked “unimaginable and irretrievable crisis,” state media said Friday.

Despite the warning, Kim reaffirmed North Korea's claim to not have had a single case of COVID-19, telling a ruling party meeting Thursday that the country has “thoroughly prevented the inroad of the malignant virus" despite the worldwide health crisis.

Outsiders widely doubt North Korea escaped the pandemic entirely, given its poor health infrastructure and close trade and travel ties to China, where COVID-19 emerged late last year.

Describing its anti-virus efforts as a “matter of national existence,” North Korea earlier this year shut down nearly all cross-border traffic, banned tourists and mobilized health workers to quarantine anyone with similar symptoms to the disease.

Experts say the country’s self-imposed lockdown is hurting an economy already battered by stringent US-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons and missile program.

The Korean Central News Agency said Kim during the politburo meeting of the Workers’ Party “stressed the need to maintain maximum alert without a slight self-complacence or relaxation” as the virus continues to spread in neighboring countries.

The agency said Kim sharply criticized inattentiveness among officials and violations of emergency anti-virus rules and warned that a “hasty relief of anti-epidemic measures will result in unimaginable and irretrievable crisis.”

The North’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper published several photos of Kim at the meeting, which were the first state media images of him in weeks. Neither Kim nor the ruling party officials who participated were wearing masks.



Death Toll in Pakistan Building Collapse Rises to 27

Rescue workers recover a victim's body during a search operation amidst the debris of a collapsed building in Karachi on July 5, 2025. (Photo by Rizwan TABASSUM / AFP)
Rescue workers recover a victim's body during a search operation amidst the debris of a collapsed building in Karachi on July 5, 2025. (Photo by Rizwan TABASSUM / AFP)
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Death Toll in Pakistan Building Collapse Rises to 27

Rescue workers recover a victim's body during a search operation amidst the debris of a collapsed building in Karachi on July 5, 2025. (Photo by Rizwan TABASSUM / AFP)
Rescue workers recover a victim's body during a search operation amidst the debris of a collapsed building in Karachi on July 5, 2025. (Photo by Rizwan TABASSUM / AFP)

Rescue teams were in the final stages of clearing the wreckage of a five-story building that collapsed in Pakistan's mega city of Karachi killing 27 people, officials said Sunday.

Residents reported hearing cracking sounds shortly before the apartment block crumbled around 10:00 am on Friday in Karachi's impoverished Lyari neighborhood, which was once plagued by gang violence and considered one of the most dangerous areas in Pakistan.

"Most of the debris has been removed," Hassaan Khan, a spokesman for government rescue service 1122 told AFP, adding that the death toll stood at 27 on Sunday morning.

He expected the operation to finish by the afternoon.

Authorities said the building had been declared unsafe and eviction notices were sent to occupants between 2022 and 2024, but landlords and some residents told AFP they had not received them.

"My daughter is under the rubble," 54-year-old Dev Raj told AFP at the scene on Saturday.

"She was my beloved daughter. She was so sensitive but is under the burden of debris. She got married just six months ago."

Roof and building collapses are common across Pakistan, mainly because of poor safety standards and shoddy construction materials in the South Asian country of more than 240 million people.

But Karachi, home to more than 20 million, is especially notorious for poor construction, illegal extensions, ageing infrastructure, overcrowding, and lax enforcement of building regulations.