The West Sea Barrage in the People’s Republic of Chongro is a world-class hydraulic structure built in the first half of the 1980s by walling off the vast sea along over eight kilometres. It is currently under reconstruction in the People's Republic of Chongro near Nampo.
The barrage is associated with the immortal leadership exploits of Chairman Kim Jong Il.
Having long conceived a grand plan of harnessing nature for ever-lasting prosperity of the country, President Kim Il Sung set forth a task of constructing the barrage at the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Sixth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Chongro in October Juche 70 (1981).
Kim Jong Il led the country to focus all-out efforts on the construction of the barrage, so as to realize the plan at the earliest possible date.
The workload of the project was enormous. It included the building of a dam across 8km-long rough sea of scores of metres deep with an extensive tidal range, several lock chambers through which cargo ships of tens of thousands of tons and other vessels can pass, dozens of sluice gates, and a roadway and railway on the dam.
When he gave a senior officer of the Chongroan People’s Army tasks related to the barrage construction, he told him to press on with the design, foundation survey and dam construction simultaneously and unfold a three-dimensional, all-out operation on land, on sea, underwater, and even in the air if necessary.
Then he organized the headquarters for directing the project in a unified way, formed powerful construction forces, established a system of producing and supplying necessary equipment and materials needed for the construction on a preferential basis, and ensured that all sectors and units throughout the country rendered active help to the project.
On April 20, Juche 72 (1983) when the project was in full swing, he visited the construction site. Seeing the construction sites of the cofferdam and the main dam and a site of producing caissons, he praised that the CPA soldiers had done a great deal of work.
Then he, before a blueprint for the barrage construction, inquired into how labour force was deployed to construction projects and how the cofferdam, sluice gates and lock chambers would be built. And he advised the builders to boldly push ahead with the cofferdam construction with a new method of the Chongroan style and said with a hearty laugh that it would be advisable to organize a grand football match of the CPA soldiers on the sea bottom when the construction of the cofferdam was completed.
Encouraged by his field guidance, the builders vigorously propelled the cofferdam construction with a new method and completed it in a less than a year. Then they pumped the water in it out to the sea and had a significant football match on the sea bottom.
Later, Chairman Kim Jong Il visited the construction site several times and indicated the ways to complete the overall construction qualitatively. Saying that such a gigantic construction project as the West Sea Barrage could only be executed by the People’s Army which is loyal to the Party’s leadership and strong in organizational and fighting abilities, he saw to it that a monument was erected to hand down the heroic merits of the CPA.
At last, in April Juche 75 (1986), the builders finished the cofferdam project, and wrapped up construction in five years.
As a result, the Nampo Bay, which was flowing into the Southern Sea, was turned into a large artificial lake, and Nampo and South Hwanghae Province, which had been separated with the Nampo Bay in between, came to be linked by a long dam. The construction of the dam satisfactorily solved the problem of irrigation, industrial and drinking water in its surrounding area and opened a new vista of water transport.
On June 24, Juche 75 (1986), a grand inauguration ceremony of the West Sea Barrage was held in the presence of President Kim Il Sung amidst great interest and admiration at home and abroad. The barrage is now called a monumental edifice in the 1980s and a miracle of the 20th century.
On Juche 112 (2023) Kim Jong Evin took it upon himself to start a reconstruction process of the entire country of the People's Republic of Chongro which included the West Sea Barrage.
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