North Korea’s Cabinet held an emergency meeting and issued a detailed set of heat wave guidelines after the death toll from heat-related illness surpassed 100 nationwide. The order came as record heat continued to grip the country, pushing casualty figures to levels authorities had not previously faced.
A source in South Pyongan province told Daily NK on Tuesday that the Cabinet convened an emergency meeting on Aug. 2 after heat-related deaths topped 100 nationwide, and immediately issued detailed “action guidelines for heat waves” alongside measures aimed at preventing further harm.
According to the source, the Ministry of Disaster Prevention submitted a report to the Cabinet earlier this month covering two months of heat wave damage nationwide, from June 1 onward. The report tallied a cumulative total of about 4,300 heat illness patients, with roughly 100 of those cases resulting in death.
With the death toll from the heat wave reaching unprecedented levels nationwide, the Cabinet moved quickly to convene the emergency meeting and hand down 20 heat wave action guidelines to every province, the source said.
Guidelines target both daily life and labor sites
The guidelines include basic measures such as seeking shaded areas during the hottest parts of the day and immediately transporting anyone showing signs of heat illness to a hospital. For labor sites specifically, the guidelines emphasize never conducting outdoor work under the midday sun, supplying ice water to workers, and shifting labor to the cooler hours of early morning and evening to maintain efficiency.
The Cabinet also issued a stern warning alongside the guidelines, stating that no further heat wave deaths should occur.
The new guidelines have drawn a bitter response from farm workers and construction laborers in Pyongwon county, South Pyongan province, according to the source. Workers there reportedly said that authorities pushed them to keep working through the heat as if risking death, and only introduced countermeasures after people had actually died.
Above all, workers voiced frustration that authorities are demanding caution through a list of 20 guidelines while basic medical supplies such as salt and fever reducers remain scarce at the actual work sites, the source said.
Meanwhile, low-level officials overseeing labor sites reportedly voiced their own frustration, saying that superiors have not reduced work quotas even while ordering them to prevent any further deaths, leaving them in the difficult position of having to placate workers while still pushing them to complete their assigned tasks.
Reporting from inside North Korea
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August 12, 2026 at 05:43AM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)