North Korea makes rare public appeal for flood relief

North Korea usually projects itself to the world as a fully functioning worker's paradise.

Yet severe flooding in the country's northeast has resulted in a rare admission that all is not so well.

According to a report published Sunday by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) -- North Korea's official state media -- the country's northeast has been affected by the "heaviest downpour" since 1945, with "tens of thousands" of buildings destroyed and people left homeless and "suffering from great hardship.

Keeping wider social discontent at bay The sheer scale of the disaster has led the North Korean government to ask for help. "It's not unheard of, but it's rare for the North Korean government to make an open and public call for assistance