DPRK's History of Self-reliance (20)

Pyongyang, July 29 (KCNA) -- Many big and small power bases have been built in the DPRK to dynamically propel the development of the independent economy.

One of them is the Jangjagang Power Station, the country's first large-scale hydro-power station.

Penetrating deep into the position and importance of the electric power industry in the development of the national economy, President Kim Il Sung opened a brilliant prospect of the five-year plan at the 3rd Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea and set forth a task for building the Jangjagang Power Station in a short period of time.

At that time, it was a huge nature-remaking project as high dam should be built at deep valley of the Jangja River before the power station and much fund and manpower and several hundred thousands of tons of cement and steel were needed.

The President visited the power station under construction several times to indicate the orientation and ways for its construction.

Despite the condition of no large construction machine, its builders drastically raised the average daily volume of dam concrete tamping by introducing various methods in the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance and fortitude and created a new construction speed in building generator room, intake canal and discharge waterway. After all, they finished the concrete tamping, which would take some years at a normal pace, in a little over one year while saving much manpower and materials.

Thanks to such efforts of those builders who turned out in the struggle to carry into practice the President's far-reaching plan for the electrification of the whole country, the power station was wonderfully completed in December 1959, three years after the start of its construction.

This served as a precious experience for power station construction in the country. -0-