A 10-ton Truck "Pursued"

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea directs great efforts to protecting and promoting the people's health and providing them with a more civilized living environment under the correct policy and wise leadership of the Workers' Party of Korea on environmental protection.

One of the important things in environmental protection is to take thorough measures to prevent pollution, and one of the first things to this end is to prevent air and water pollution.

At a time, when air pollution is becoming a serious problem in many countries of the world, the Korean people in every part of the country are living in good health. This is inconceivable separated from President Kim Il Sung's warm affection and meticulous care for the people.

Photo 1. Spring in Pyongyang

Photo 2. Autumn in Pyongyang

Chairman Kim Jong Il said:

"The great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung regarded land management and environmental protection as an ennobling patriotic undertaking for the people, and always paid close attention to it. And our Party, true to his intention, has taken various steps for improving and stepping up environmental protection work."

Kim Il Sung always stressed the need to turn Pyongyang into a city in a park, free from air pollution and with thick forests, and never allowed anything that ran counter to this work.

One day in March 1973, he visited a rural village in a suburb of Pyongyang, and entered the city at sunset.

He was enjoying the view of the city by car with a senior official of the Pyongyang Municipal Party Committee, when he suddenly told the driver to follow the car ahead.

In front, a 10-ton truck was running, emitting fumes.

When the driver tried to speed up to overtake the truck, President Kim Il Sung told him only to follow it, opened the car window.

When the truck's exhaust fumes got into the car, an official hurriedly tried to close the windows. President Kim Il Sung restrained him, saying that he should leave the window as it was and that we follow the truck a little farther. He was trying to figure out how much exhaust fumes were emitting from the truck.

After a while, he closed the window, saying:

Whenever I see, 10-ton trucks emit a lot of exhaust fumes. There should not be such a truck in the city.

He instructed the senior official of the Pyongyang Municipal Party Committee to take measures of catching the exhaust fumes from these trucks and preventing them from driving in the city. Only then the senior official realized why the President had his car "pursue" the truck.

This is how all the trucks were made to drive along the relief roads so that the citizens of the capital city could always enjoy a clear and fresh air.

President Kim Il Sung, who had already advanced the policy of developing means of public transport and popularizing trams and subway trains rather than buses as means of public transport, paid close attention to the operation of trucks so that Pyongyang could better solve the problem of air pollution caused by exhaust fumes.

This is an anecdote showing how President Kim Il Sung was concerned to provide the people with more civilized living conditions and environment.