North Korea has placed a cover over a destroyer that suffered damage in a botched launch attempt, with the vessel now appearing to be on its side and partially submerged, satellite imagery indicates. The 5,000-ton Choe Hyon-class destroyer — one of the North Korea’s largest warships — was a key part of the state’s naval modernization plans. Kim Jong Un was on hand to see the launch and his media made a rare admission of failure afterwards, with the leader calling the incident a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism,” the official Korean Central News Agency reported Thursday. The ship’s bow didn’t leave the shipway, KCNA said, and the imagery indicates that a section of the destroyer remained on land. “From satellite image alone, I cannot tell how badly damaged the ship is. But I would assume that the ship suffered from structural damage,” said Tianran Xu, a senior analyst at the Open Nuclear Network in Vienna. Kim called for the destroyer to be restored by the end of June, but Xu said he’s “suspicious about this timeline.” North Korea’s state media hasn’t released images of the accident as of 11 p.m. local time Thursday and the acknowledgment of the launch failure was probably due to the attention North Korea has drawn to its new class of destroyers.

Full story : Kim Jong Un fumes as North Korea’s new warship damaged due to “absolute carelessness” in launch accident.