Kim Jong Il (File photo/ Xinhua)
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea has bestowed a posthumous award on a 14-year-old schoolgirl who drowned in a flash flood while trying to save portraits of the country’s late leaders.
Han Hyon-Gyong's heroism earned her the Kim Jong-Il Youth Honor Award, and her school will be renamed after her, the newspaper Rodong Sinmun said on Tuesday.
Han died on June 11 as she tried to save portraits of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il from her flooded home at Sinhung county in the eastern province of South Hamkyong.
As she was swallowed up by gushing floodwaters, the girl held the pictures wrapped in plastic sheets above the surface, according to the report on the paper's website.
