North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has made a series of high-profile visits to flooded farms in recent weeks, reprimanding local officials for poor preparations for a typhoon and calling for his premier to be punished after an embankment collapsed.

State media’s coverage appears to be an attempt to show that the leadership is concerned about disaster response and mitigating impacts on food supplies, with floods, typhoons, droughts and other natural disasters a recurring part of recent DPRK history.

But while North Korea has long understood it has problems with extreme weather — not least