Devotion to Barrage

Tokko Chang Guk, manager of the West Sea Barrage Station under the Ministry of Land and Maritime Transport, is a deputy to the Supreme People’s Assembly of the DPRK.

On the first day of his appointment to the station after graduation from a university, he was deeply moved by a video dealing with the feats performed by the builders who had built the world-famous barrage across the rough sea in the 1980s.

That day, commanding a bird’s-eye view of the gigantic barrage on the observation platform, he resolved to devote himself to glorifying the grand monumental structure, a source of pride for his country invested with the sweat and blood of the Korean people.

Working as a towerman, he made efforts to broaden the horizon of his knowledge about hydraulic engineering and structures and made an in-depth study of barrage structures, including lock chambers, control tower and main and auxiliary spillway dams.

In those days, he produced valuable research findings about nautical and oceanic features and marine transport service management in the waters off the barrage and a new method for removing decolourized and rust stains from the granite walls of the lighthouse affected by the action of the weather.

After he was appointed to the managership, he regarded it as his iron rule to always mix himself with employees, lend ears to them and enlist their inexhaustible strength and talents to solve problems arising in the reality.

He made strenuous efforts to pick out talented personnel one by one and lead them to give fullest play to their abilities.

His table was always piled up with many documents of technical innovations and inventions presented by his employees.

Some of them were somewhat awkward, but whenever he found the germ of new theory favourable for the barrage operation he devotedly helped his employees prove their worth in the reality.

Besides, he established a new automatic sluice control system and found sci-tech solutions to upgrading the tower of controlling lock chambers through his painstaking speculation and inquiry, thereby providing a guarantee for safely managing and operating the barrage, unaffected by any water level.

He, together with his employees, built a dock for the timely repair of ships passing through the barrage in keeping with its specific conditions, and a 180-ton-class freight vessel to ensure the transport of necessary cargoes.

They have devoted all their wisdom and energy to working out a management strategy and building up material foundations on the basis of scientific calculation and figures, with the result that the station has been turned into the envy of others in a few years.

His employees say that their manager was born for the barrage as he has devotedly worked for it, full of untiring ambition and zeal.

“Foreign and local visitors to our barrage would express admiration at the heroic feats performed by its builders. Then, I always resolved to do more things with a pride of working here. I will devote myself for the barrage management”, says manager Chang Guk.