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According to KCNA:
Pyongyang, June 30 (KCNA) — A detailed report of the Korean Central News Agency on the completion of the Taegyedo Tideland Reclamation Project was released Wednesday.
According to it, the project for reclaiming 8,800 hectares of land, the largest ever in the history of tideland reclamation in Korea, was completed to connect Taedasa Islet, Kacha Islet, Soyondong Islet and Taegye Islet in the West Sea with dykes extending several kilometers. This sharply reduced the indentation of the shoreline of Yomju County and Cholsan County of North Phyongan Province.
As a result, there appeared salterns and fish breeding farms along with a big socialist farm in the nation’s leading reclaimed tideland. Thanks to tide embankments seashore farms and villages in various counties are completely freed from the damage by tidal waves and salty seawater and a long ring road linking Tasa Workers’ District, Yomju County to Jangsong Workers’ District, Cholsan County was built along the strong dykes.
The project as huge as the West Sea Barrage in terms of size and the volume of work and equivalent to the undertaking to obtain the same arable land as that in a lowland county required the fullest display of mental power as it was Herculean task to create things from nothing, harnessing wild nature at a time when everything was in short supply.
President Kim Il Sung matured a grandiose plan for reclaiming tideland on the West Coast while waging bloody battles against the Japanese imperialists and formed a group for surveying tideland when the war was at its height, exploring the path for great nature-harnessing projects for the eternal prosperity of the country. General Secretary Kim Jong Il possessed of the iron will to accomplish the patriotic cause for eternal prosperity initiated by the President visited tideland reclamation sites two times when the above-said projects were making dynamic progress. He highly appreciated the successes made by officials and workers there and clearly indicated the way to be followed by them.
When the severest tidal waves in hundreds of years hit the whole area along the west coast of Korea on August 21, Juche 86 (1997), the builders there waged a persevering struggle, rebuilding broken sections of Breakwater No.1 between Taedasa Islet and Kacha Islet and Breakwater No. 2 between Kacha Islet and Soyondong Islet and finally relinking Breakwater No. 3 on June 11, Juche 94 (2005) and finishing the first-phase damming up project.
By July Juche 96 (2007) the builders successfully completed Breakwaters Nos. 2 and 4 and completed Breakwater No.1 on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the DPRK.
They built Breakwater No. 3 covering hundreds of thousands of square meters with feldspar through their patriotic devoted drive.
Thanks to the patriotic enthusiasm and heroic struggle of the builders, such inner network project as installation of draining gates and building of embankment in the middle and lower reaches of a river were simultaneously carried out, turning thousands of hectares of tideland into a fertile land.
The Taegyedo Tideland Reclamation Project was finally completed with the completion of Breakwater No. 3 ahead of schedule.
I have previously posted information on the DPRK’s land reclamation projects in the West Sea. See the post here.
There is also more information on these projects in the book North Korea: A Strange Socialist Fortress by Lee Hy-sang. Here is a link to the book in Google Books. The Tideland reclamation projects are discussed on pp 134-139.
Do you know when construction began?
Since 2009 they build 6km of damm which I think is pretty impressive compared to other building projects in the DPRK. I wonder if this is more than a prestige project, but rather to demonstrate their tideland reclamation abilities to the world. Maybe we will see DPRK workers building similar damms in other countries soon?