Failure of Sanitation, Energy and Health Systems
The threats from famine were compounded by severe damage to health systems and water, sanitation, and energy distribution systems. The DPRK lost an estimated 85% of hydroelectric capacity from damage caused by the floods, along with coal mines, supplies and transport facilities, reducing the ability for the country to produce its own energy. UN officials reported a complex set of problems, commenting that the power shortage problem of 1995-1997
was not due to a shortage of oil as only two of two dozen power stations were dependent on heavy fuel oil for power generation... and these were supplied by KEDO (the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization).... About 70% of power generated in the DPRK came from hydropower sources, and the serious winter-spring droughts of 1996 and 1997 (and a breakdown on one of the Yalu River’s large hydro turbines) created major shortages throughout the country at that time, severely cutting back railway transportation (which was almost entirely dependent on electric power), which in turn resulted in coal supply shortages to the coal-fueled power stations which supplied the remaining 20% of power in the country.With breakdowns in the energy sector, and contamination of water sources due to the failure of sanitation facilities, the health care system was unable to cope with the situation. Inadequate inputs and power failure combined with outdated training and knowledge about health care techniques and procedures led to a health care crisis that added to the overall devastation. According to a 1997 UNICEF delegation,
hospitals were clean but wards were devoid of even the most rudimentary supplies and equipment; sphygmomanometers, thermometers, scales, kidney dishes, spatulas, IV giving sets, etc. The mission saw numerous patients being treated with home made beer bottle IV sets, clearly unsterile. There was an absence of ORS (oral rehydration solution) and even the most basic drugs such as analgesics and antibiotics.With almost the entire infrastructure in some sort of disrepair, the famine escalated to crisis levels.
Read more about this topic: North Korean Famine
Famous quotes containing the words failure of, failure, energy, health and/or systems:
“The moment a mere numerical superiority by either states or voters in this country proceeds to ignore the needs and desires of the minority, and for their own selfish purpose or advancement, hamper or oppress that minority, or debar them in any way from equal privileges and equal rights—that moment will mark the failure of our constitutional system.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Dear George: Remember no man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings! Love, Clarence”
—Frances Goodrich (1891–1984)
“Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men’s belief that they “own” their bodies—those vast and perilous estates, pulsating with the energy that made the worlds, in which they find themselves without their consent and from which they are ejected at the pleasure of Another!”
—C.S. (Clive Staples)
“...I am who I am because I’m a black female.... When I was health director in Arkansas ... I could talk about teen-age pregnancy, about poverty, ignorance and enslavement and how the white power structure had imposed it—only because I was a black female. I mean, black people would have eaten up a white male who said what I did.”
—Joycelyn Elders (b. 1933)
“No civilization ... would ever have been possible without a framework of stability, to provide the wherein for the flux of change. Foremost among the stabilizing factors, more enduring than customs, manners and traditions, are the legal systems that regulate our life in the world and our daily affairs with each other.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)