Pyongyang, May 21 (KCNA) -- Eighty years have passed since the ceremony for starting the Pothong River improvement project was held in the DPRK.

Before national liberation (August 15, 1945), the Pothong River in Pyongyang was in floods in every rainy season, claiming huge casualties and destroying surrounding villages and fields.

After the country's liberation, President Kim Il Sung decided to carry out the Pothong River improvement project as the start of great nature transformation for building a prosperous, independent and sovereign state and roused the public to the project.

On May 21, 1946, he attended the ceremony for starting the improvement project, where he said that the successful building of a democratic Korea depends entirely on the own efforts and enthusiasm of the Korean people and called on them to complete the projects like the Pothong River improvement one after another despite tightening belts.

The Korean people, who turned out as one in the patriotic project for nature transformation, worked a miracle by finishing such a large project as removing more than 420 000 cubic meters of earth and building 5 km-long embankment within 55 days.

With the completion of the project, the river started to flow along a new waterway to the Taedong River and the banks of the Pothong River became invulnerable to any flood.

The completion of the project was the first victory the Korean people gained in the great nature transformation by believing in their efforts under the leadership of President Kim Il Sung after national liberation.

The Korean people built the Monument to the Pothong River Improvement Project on the Ponghwasan Hill on May 21, 1971 in order to convey to posterity the President's immortal exploits associated with the history of the great change of the Pothong River. -0-