The Koryo Hotel is probably the most famous hotel in Pyongyang. (Granted, that’s a small pool.) It’s the usual spot where tourists stay on their unethical, ill-advised junkets to the country. And it’s apparently on fire.
The well-sourced NK News website reports:
A fire has broken out at Pyongyang’s iconic Koryo Hotel, sources currently in the country told NK News on Thursday.
The fire, which as of Thursday evening Korea time was continuing to burn near the top of the building, is “quite serious,” one local source reported.
The fire, which as of Thursday evening Korea time was continuing to burn near the top of the building, is “quite serious,” one local source reported.
Hopefully, for the sake of the hotel’s guests and operators, the report is false. But as Korea watcher Jack Kim points out, this is a sign of how utterly isolated North Korea is: A major landmark is supposedly on fire, and all we have is one thinly sourced report. The Associated Press’s vaunted Pyongyang bureau has not reported on the matter, of course, which shows, once again, the utter inefficacy of the “news bureaus” that are based in North Korea.
